


Got to Be Real

by sunalso



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 70s music, Adult Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Ending, LLF Comment Project, Minor Violence, Season/Series 02, Temporary Character Death, but it's still not that much, eh aliens, ghost!Jemma, more angst than I meant there to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:13:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/pseuds/sunalso
Summary: S2 AU. Instead of being pulled immediately from the water at the end of S1, Jemma didn’t make it, and now she’s haunting Fitz as he recovers, just like she said she would. What do you do when you can’t touch the one you love? And someday, somehow, Jemma knows she’s going to be real again. Now if only everyone would stop telling Fitz he’s crazy for talking to thin air.Beta'd by Gort. Amazing banner by ughfitz!





	1. I Will Survive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gort/gifts).



> A/N: I'm stretching the start of S2 over a slightly longer time period to fit narrative needs, as well as adjust events a tiny bit to accommodate character development. 
> 
> This fic is completed and will be posted as my beta has time to do her thing. 
> 
> If any of my Spuffy peeps want to read, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on Netflix and you probably can get away with watching the last episode of S1 and the first couple episodes of S2.

Did you think I'd lay down and die?

               -Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”

****

Cold.

No air.

Blackness.

Then lights that were too bright, someone saying his name as he coughed a tube out of his lungs. He was in a bed. How’d he gotten there? Where was she?

Panic.

He couldn’t see her. He tried to call for her, but the word…her name wouldn’t...he couldn’t make his mouth form the word.

He thrashed, ignoring the pain, trying to get up, away from the hands holding him. He needed to find her. Where was she?

Someone was telling him to calm down, and they kept asking him to say his name. Over and over.

That didn’t matter. He tried, just to make them shut the hell up, but he couldn’t. Something was wrong. Really wrong.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know where she was.

“Fitz!” Her voice broke through the terror engulfing him. “Fitz! You’re in the hospital. You need to relax.”

He immediately stopped fighting. Sagging against the bed, he turned his head towards where the sounds had come from.

She was there. Her beautiful face, which he knew better than his own, made his heart soar. She was dressed neat as a pin in slacks, a white blouse, and a blue jumper. Her hair was tied back. One side of his mouth quirked up. He’d done it. She was alright.

She smiled back. “You can see me. That’s wonderful! Thank goodness!”

He wanted to tell her it was wonderful to see her too. The words were right on the tip of his tongue, but they kept slipping away.

One of the nurses must have given him a sedative because then it was him that was slipping away, but he couldn’t stop grinning.

She was there.

Everything was okay.

Jemma.

****

The next time he woke up, she was sitting in a chair beside the bed.

The time after that, she was pacing around the room.

Slowly, bits and pieces of reality flittered in and settled into his mind. The doctors and nurses said a lot of things, none of which he wanted to hear.

“Expressive aphasia.”

“Left-sided neglect.”

“Anoxic brain injury.”

He suspected they were all about him and why his mind was fuzzy and his tongue and body weren't functioning correctly.

His other coworkers came to see him, brief stays and hurried words of encouragement. It was overwhelming when he couldn’t say anything back. He’d know what he’d want to tell them: thank you for coming. For remembering him. But when he went to speak, the words would dance just out of reach.

It was exhausting.

No one stayed long. They all looked so uncomfortable. Even Skye only managed an hour, reading from a journal that’d come in the post for him. It wasn’t a scintillating article—nothing groundbreaking—and she tripped over the bigger words and looked bored, but he appreciated the effort.

He hated, when she left, that he couldn’t even tell her thanks.

Like always, Jemma was one of the few constants in his world. She was there at all hours of the day and her presence was the only thing that made the long nights bearable. Her voice would be soft as she rambled on about medical treatments or stories that’d been on the news.

She was a comfort, and he could hardly believe she was there with him. It also helped she could nearly read his mind.

They had whole conversations where all he had to do was look at her a certain way and she knew exactly what he meant.

She was a lifesaver.

The other consistent thing was a battered radio on the edge of the windowsill that someone had tuned to an oldies station that played 70s hits. It was on around the clock, until he thought he was going to go stark raving mad from Fleetwood Mac overdose. He couldn’t get out of bed to smash the stupid thing to smithereens, or even ask someone to change the station.

He didn’t get used to it until he caught Simmons humming along to Billy Joel.

After that, he didn’t mind so much. Jemma hadn’t changed the station, after all, and he’d do anything to make her happy.

****

After what felt like bloody forever they moved him from the hospital to a rehab center. His room wasn’t much different, still starkly institutional. The tired looking radio made the trip with him. The place didn’t feel like home until it was set up in the corner and softly playing Gloria Gaynor.

At rehab there was endless physical therapy. Too slowly to suit him, he figured out how to walk again, feed himself again, the whole nine yards.

Speaking was another matter.

He tried, he really did, but most sessions with the speech therapist left him shaking with frustration.

Like right now.

He glared at the therapist, who was a clean-cut and bland young man in a dark green jumper. Fitz had been trying for a good fifteen minutes to say a few simple words, and he was getting angry at himself.

This was ridiculous.

“How about we go back to the first exercise again?” the therapist asked, picking up his pencil.

How about they didn’t? He couldn’t do this. For his entire life Fitz had been at the top of his class, and now he couldn’t even say a single blasted thing.

Frustrated, he launched himself to his feet and sent the papers on the edge of the desk fluttering to the floor with a sweep of his hand before spinning to face the wall, his arms crossed over his middle.

He hated all of this so much.

He wasn’t himself.

“Fitz,” Jemma said, from where she’d been standing in the back of the room. “He’s just trying to help. Try again? For me? I want to hear your voice. I miss it. I miss talking to you.”

Exasperated, he pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to face her. “Jemma…”

It’d come out perfectly clear.

His gaze snapped up to her face. She was grinning. “Again!”

“Jemma.”

She laughed.

“Jemma! Jemma!” He felt giddy.

The therapist looked completely confused, but Fitz couldn’t have cared less.

Jemma was smiling.

****

Over the next week, Fitz gradually gained a handful of words he could reliably say. Simmons was a bigger help than any therapist, spending hours talking with him about everything, even though he could say very little back. Well, she’d discuss everything except what he’d said in the container under the sea, but her continued presence was enough to make him hope.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed in his room while Simmons prattled on about him needing to get a laptop and work on typing when an orderly came in to tell him he had a visitor in one of the conference rooms. Jemma said she’d wait for Fitz as he stood to follow the orderly.

Fitz was startled to find it was Coulson who was sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the small room.

“Hey, I heard you were doing better,” Coulson said, not quite meeting Fitz’s eyes. It made his chest constrict. Coulson was radiating ‘bad news’.

Fitz pulled the other chair out from the table, the ends of the metal legs scraping loudly against the linoleum. He sat, putting his elbows on the table.

“S-s-some,” he said.

Coulson nodded and pursed his lips before continuing. “The staff said you’ve been asking for….Jemma, quite a lot.”

Fitz frowned. Asking? He did say her name frequently, but that was because she was there with him. And because it was one of the few things he could reliably pronounce.

Coulson leaned forward and put his hand on Fitz’s arm. “I volunteered to do this. I think it’s best coming from me.”

“What?” Fitz asked, glaring at Coulson’s hand.

“Simmons…she didn’t make it.”

Startled, Fitz looked up at his boss. Coulson’s face was a mix of compassion and pity, but what he was saying didn’t make sense. Fitz had just seen Jemma. She was waiting for him in his room.

“What?” he said again.

Coulson took his hand back and crossed his arms before leaning on the table. “We know you tried to save her, gave her the only air, but with everything in shambles that day it was too long before a rescue was dispatched. Your signal did get through but there wasn’t anyone available to go looking.” Coulson shifted on his chair. “Simmons…she refused to let you go. I don’t know how she lasted as long as she did, or how you two were still on the surface. She’d improvised a flotation device from her pants and had positioned it to keep your head out of the water. Her arm was around you and…we think she passed out from exhaustion and…there was water filling her lungs.”

Fitz was staring in open-mouthed horror.

He was the one who was supposed to die. That’d been his choice. She wasn’t supposed to have made the same one.

It didn’t make sense, anyway. He’d just seen Simmons. She was in his room.

“No,” Fitz said.

Coulson sighed. “I’m sorry, Fitz.”

“No,” Fitz said again. A headache was welling up behind his eyes. “No. No. No. No!”

“Her memorial has been postponed until you’re well enough to speak. We thought…it just wouldn’t be right if you weren’t there.”

Memorial? Simmons didn’t need a memorial. She was right here with him.

Fitz was beyond irritated. Was this a joke? If it was, it wasn’t a very funny one.

Coulson smiled tightly. “We all miss her. Simmons was one of the best.”

Irritation gave way to anger. Jemma wasn’t dead. It was too much. “No!” Fitz barked, launching himself to his feet. “No. Y-y-you…No!” He kicked his chair against the wall, the noise loud enough that Coulson flinched. Fitz pressed the heels of his palms against his temples.

This wasn’t right.

He thought he might be screaming.

Then there were people wearing scrubs filling the room and grabbing him, their hands rough.

“No!” he told them. “No, no, no—"

A pinch to his arm and his eyelids were suddenly heavy.

****

Jemma stood in the middle of the dark hospital room, her arms crossed over her chest and her fingers digging into the fabric of her shirt.

Fitz had been asleep for a long time. They’d given him a terrible lot of sedative.

She’d heard him shouting and gone running. He’d already been knocked out when she’d reached the conference room, but the orderlies had talked as they’d tucked him into bed: the poor guy had been told his girlfriend had died and gone nuts.

This was going to be a really difficult conversation. She’d been pacing and rehearsing it, and now Fitz just needed to bloody well wake up.

There was a groan from the bed.

Finally!

Fitz sat up, he shook his head once and sank his hand into his hair, propping his elbow on his bent knee. His eyes darted wildly around the room until they settled on her. Relief visibly swept through him.

“Jemma,” he said.

“I’m here, Fitz.”

“Co-Co-“

“Coulson,” she supplied.

Fitz visibly swallowed. “He s-s-said you…d-d…dead.”

“I think I am.”

His brow creased. “What?”

“I know your brain is still in there. Use it. Have you ever seen anyone else talk to me? Or look at me? Have I ever had different clothes on?”

Fitz put a hand over his eyes as he frowned. She hated doing this to him, though how he hadn’t put the pieces together on his own she didn’t know.

“Have I ever been anywhere besides here?” She squeezed her hands into fists. “Have I once touched you since you’ve been in hospital?”

“No,” he whispered as the color drained from his face. “Jemma?”

“I don’t remember dying if that makes any difference. And I seem to be linked to you, which is good. I mean, you’re the only one who can see and hear me.”

Fitz’s jaw tightened. “I th-th-thought you…wanted…with me.”

Jemma’s stomach dropped. “No, stop. I do. I want to be here. With you. It’s not because of whatever thing is linking us. There’s no one else in the universe I’d rather be tied to. And I think I said once if I died first, I was going to haunt you. So there. I kept my promise.”

He was staring at her.

“Watch. Empirical evidence, right?” She walked to the table beside the bed where the TV remote, a glass of water, and a lamp sat. She held up her hand until Fitz moved his gaze from her face to it. Wiggling her fingers, she lowered it and waved her hand so it passed through the lamp’s base.

Ick. That felt weird.

“I can sit on chairs and the floor, or ride in an elevator. I spent a day doing that when you were unconscious, and I couldn’t stop crying every time I looked at your face.”

“No,” he said, and for once she didn’t know what he meant. That she wasn’t a ghost? That she hadn’t ridden the elevators?

Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry I’m like this. And I’m sorry you got hurt Fitz, so sorry. But I’m not sorry that if I had to be stuck as an incorporeal being, that it was with you .”

“Jemma!” he cried and hid his face in his hands as his entire body shook with sobs.

A nurse poked her head in, her expression changing to one of sympathy before she closed the door.

Jemma stood awkwardly beside the bed. “I want to hug you,” she said after a while. “It feels so wrong that I can’t.”

Slowly, Fitz’s sobs lessened. He dried his face with his sleeve. “Y-y-your hand…how c-c-can you—” He waved his fingers in the direction of the chair beside his bed that she slept in.  

“Sit?” she said.

“Or…floor?”

“I don’t know. Oh, Fitz, I’ve wanted so badly to talk to you about this.”

He sat up on the side of the bed, and she could see him thinking, but then he stood and started walking away. Her heart plummeted.

“Fitz?”

“Er…pee.”

“Oh, of course.” Jemma didn’t have regular body function anymore and she occasionally forgot that he still did. Impatiently, she tapped her toe until he returned, his hands still damp from washing and his cheeks slightly pink. He sat on the edge of the bed. The ugly radio—she had no idea where it’d come from—was stuck on a 70s channel that was playing Van Morrison. At least it was a song she liked. Every Saturday the station had Disco Fever Day, and that wasn’t exactly her favorite.

Fitz fidgeted and looked at his lap. “W-w-when I was…out. Did you s-s-see…?”

“Absolutely not!” Okay, maybe there’d been a few tiny peeks, but she’d never just stood there. “I turned my back, or, once I figured out how to do it, I’d go out through the door anytime the nurses bathed you.”

Fitz nodded and looked relieved. “Thanks.”

“I do have to tell you, it’s very frustrating being like this. I’m looking forward to getting back to a lab so you can take readings. Do I have any kind of an electromagnetic signature? I have no way to test anything.” She sniffed. “I’ve never believed tales of the paranormal, but here I am. It’s a fascinating chance to study the phenomenon. If only I could write.”

Fitz looked close to tears again. “Jemma…lab? Me?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said. “The aphasia will improve, and your brain likes making connections, which we know from you being so brilliant—” she was relieved when that made him smile “—so soon you’ll find it’s not so difficult to put all the pieces together. You’re still Fitz.” She bit her lip. “You’re still my Fitz.”

His hands were twisting in his lap. “It’s h-h-hard.”

“Yes. It is. But I know you, and you’ll do it.”

He studied her face, probably trying to see if she was promising more than was possible, but she was sure. There wasn’t a lot in the world she was certain of, but she believed in him, and as long as they were together, they’d figure everything out.

“Okay, Jemma.” He stretched back out on the bed, lying on his side, facing away from the edge. He reached out and patted the bed beside him. “Sleep?” She was touched. It was much more appealing than the chair.

“I do, a little. In fact, I find myself exhausted at the moment. If you could move the pillow for me? My head goes through it, and that’s not very pleasant.”

Fitz tossed the pillow away as she pulled off her jumper. She lay down beside him and watched as he observed her. The bed didn’t dip under her weight. The wrinkles of the blanket she was on didn’t compress. It made her feel so insubstantial. Jemma wadded her jumper up under her head.

Her elbow accidently passed through his arm as she settled and they both flinched.

“You could feel that?” she asked, excited.

“Like a-a sho..sho…”

“Electric shock?” she said, and he nodded. “A not very pleasant one. I can feel it anytime I pass through a living person, but you’re the first human who can sense it too.”

“I w-w-will always feel you.”

Warmth spread through her chest. “Goodnight, Fitz.”

“Night, Jemma.”

He closed his eyes and was asleep almost immediately. His poor brain needed so much energy to heal. Her own wouldn’t turn off. She had so many questions about her new state of being, though it was difficult to focus on them as she considered how Fitz’s eyelashes fanned out. They were ridiculously thick for a man. Simmons felt a little disconcerted. Had they always been like that? She prided herself on her observational skills. How could she have possibly missed something so basic about her best friend?


	2. Landslide

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’

               -Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide”

****

_A Few Months Later…_

Simmons was perched on a stool in the lab. The new place was nice. Really nice.

It’d be even better if she could actually do something. There was a scientific journal on the counter behind her she’d been reading, but she needed the page turned, and at the moment she didn’t want to ask Fitz.

He was in a snit.

She hated being helpless, unable to affect the world around her. She hated even more watching Fitz struggle to relearn things that’d once been effortless for him.

Currently, he was hunched over a table, bits and pieces of his latest attempt at cloaking technology spread out. He was cursing, either at the random pieces or at himself.

“I can’t…” he said, ending with a wordless grunt of frustration as he raked his hand through his hair.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“No! I just…just…need—”

“What about the resonator?” she asked. Fitz had been muttering something about that earlier.

“No!” he barked, standing and going to the far side of the table, his hands on his hips. “That’s n-n-not. The super…super…”

“Superficial?”

“No!” he yelled, loud enough to make the lab techs look in his direction. “Damn it, Simmons. That not…”

The techs all suddenly became very busy. She wished she could rattle some chains or something to scare them. They all thought Fitz was crazy and talking to himself. Everyone did, really. No one had believed him when he’d haltingly tried to explain she was a ghost.

“Do you want to switch gears for a while?” she asked. “Maybe see if your adjustments to the new micromagnetic field detector worked?”

“No.” He gave a frustrated huff.

Oh.

“If you’re not there,” he said. “If you’re not there…”

It took her a minute to figure out what he was getting at. “If it still shows I don’t exist, you don’t think you could handle that right now.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then we won’t try.” She wasn’t sure she wanted her nonexistence confirmed either.

He nodded and rubbed his forehead. Jemma hoped it wasn’t another headache. They were less frequent than before, but Fitz always tried to work through them, and the pain made him even more surly than usual. Porcipines were less prickly.

“At least put on some music,” she suggested. “That does seem to help.”

“Right.”

The ancient radio from the hospital had followed them home. It’d taken Fitz a great deal longer than usual, but he’d finally been able to redo the wiring so he could hook his iPod to it since there wasn’t any radio reception in the base.

After a moment, _Hotel California_ started playing, and Fitz went back to fiddling with the components on the table, while Jemma returned to being completely bored. There was a desk chair pulled out from the table he was working at, so she plunked her behind in that and pulled her legs up so she could wrap her arms around her knees.

So boring.

So very boring.

“You’re s-sighing,” Fitz said, sounding annoyed.

“I’m doing it entirely to make you mad.”

He looked at her, clearly exasperated.

“Spin me,” she said. His eyebrows went up. “Please?”

Fitz’s irritation evaporated. He put down the bit of machinery in his hands and came to stand behind her chair, which he pulled further away from the table. “R-ready?”

“Do it.”

The chair squeaked in protest as Fitz sent the seat spinning. It went in lazy circles that stopped after a few rounds. It was the most fun she’d had for ages.

“More!” she said, laughing. “Faster!”

“H-harder? Too?” he said, and then flushed a brilliant red as if he just figured out what he’d said.

She giggled as her face heated up as well. “Yes, Fitz, harder.” His eyes went wide, and then the world was spinning around and around.

When the chair started to slow down, squealing ominously, Fitz caught the back to stop it and came to kneel in front of her so he could see her face.

“Any…” He swirled his finger around in the air.

“No, no dizziness. I supposed that’s the lack of an inner ear.” She glanced over her shoulder at the other people in the lab, who were doing their best not to look a Fitz and what appeared to them to be an empty chair. She turned back to him. If he wasn’t concerned, then she wouldn’t be either. “I was also not affected by centrifugal force.”

Fitz ran a hand over his face. “G-g-gravity…”

“You’re right, gravity doesn’t seem to be affecting me. I don’t have mass.”

“It’s im-im-“

“Improbable?” Skye said from where she was standing by the desk Jemma’s journal was resting on the top of.

“That.” Fitz stood.

If it bothered Skye that he’d just been kneeling and having a conversation with an empty chair, she didn’t show it.

“What’s improbable?” Skye asked. Jemma appreciated how kind Skye was to Fitz. She did her best to get him to be social, no matter how cranky he was about it. She was a good friend.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Nothing.”

There was an awkward silence.

Skye cleared her throat. “Was going to see if you wanted to go to the mess with me and some of the new people tonight. Eat. Have dinner.”

Fitz glanced at Jemma, and she nodded. It’d be good for him and since she didn’t need to eat—she never even felt hungry—being around the mess hall was uncomfortable. She hated being reminded just how unalive she was.

“Okay,” Fitz told Skye with a heavy sigh.

“Great,” she said. “That’s good.” She looked at the pieces on the table, made a face, and glanced down at the journal beside her. “Doing some light reading?” she joked.

Fitz groaned. “I wasn’t-wasn’t…I’m catching up.”

“Sounds fun.” Skye frowned at the article. “I’ll see you soon? Okay?”

“Sure,” Fitz responded. He waited until she was out the door before groaning and grasping the back of his head with both hands. “S-s-sorry, Jemma. I…I…forgot you were reading.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You were busy. You know I hate breaking your concentration when you’re working on something. Remember that time you had papers all over your living room floor, and I didn’t want to bother you, so I went out the bathroom window and down the fire escape?”

He rolled his eyes. “Two…two…”

“Yeah, it took you two whole days before you realized I’d left without saying goodbye or using the front door.”

His face suddenly lit up. “I’ve…idea!” He crowed, grabbing the journal and charging out of the lab. Simmons jumped up and followed him to a room full of filing cabinets and a decrepit looking copy machine.

Fitz flicked the power on the copier. “Idea,” he said again.

“It’s a good one.” She’d caught on to what he was doing.

Jemma stood beside him as he copied the three remaining articles in the journal off for her.

He headed back to his room, and she had to run to keep up. The hallways were always tricky because she had to sidestep and otherwise avoid all the people that couldn’t see her. Not only did it feel terrible if someone walked through her, but the one time Fitz had seen it happen, he’d turned an unhealthy green color and spent an hour lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

Simmons had sat beside him, described microvasculature of a bovine eye to him, and swore to herself she wouldn’t let him see her be so insubstantial again. So now she felt like a world class footballer as she spun around rushing agents and hurried after Fitz.

He held the door of his room open for her, closing it once she was inside. She didn’t have a bunk anymore since she was dead. Her stuff was in boxes, piled into a corner or Fitz’s room. He’d offered to unpack it, but she’d declined since she couldn’t use any of it.

It’d be nice to be able to brush her teeth.

She couldn’t even smell the toothpaste. Or anything. She could see and hear the world just fine, but her other senses were muted.  She couldn’t taste at all, and she was glad no one had seen her experimenting by licking her sweater. She could feel the texture of her clothes, skin, and hair, but when touching any other surface the sense was dulled. She couldn’t even tell if a room was hot or cold. She and Fitz had experimented with that one, confusing people as he’d taken her to the boiler room and later opened the door of the walk-in fridge so she could stand inside.

It seemed when you had brain damage and talked to your dead friend, most people would humor whatever strange whims you had.

There was still a little time before dinner, so Fitz pulled up a ‘70s playlist on his laptop the he was slowly building, and set it to shuffle—Fleetwood Mac! Yes!— then carefully arranged one of the articles on the floor for her, laying out the papers neatly in order after kicking his dirty clothes in the direction of the hamper.

Once done, he grabbed one of the back issues of a publication he liked from a haphazard pile on his desk and flopped on the bed.

It was like old times as they read in companionable silence.

****

Skye knocked on the door to Coulson’s office, receiving a muffled ‘come in’ a moment later.

She entered to find Coulson hunched over his desk and inspecting something that looked an awful lot like a shoe phone. She decided not to ask.

“How’s Fitz doing?” Coulson said without looking up.

“Okay, I think. I mean, he’s still talking to empty air and having a hard time making a sentence, but…I don’t know.” She dropped into a chair. “I don’t think he believes Simmons is dead.” Which was creepy and sad…mostly creepy.

Coulson finally glanced up at Skye. “And what do you think?”

“About Jemma being dead? What kind of question is that? I’ve seen her body. In fact, I was thinking we should take Fitz down—”

“Absolutely not,” Coulson said. “I need him working on the stealth technology and on getting better. He’s still a part of this team. Just one that needs our patience right now. If you put Simmons’ dead body in front of him you know he won’t be okay. He’ll lose most of the progress he’s made and to be honest, I’m not sure even that would make a difference with his hallucinations.”

Skye sighed and tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. Damn it, did Coulson always have to be right? “He really would be a mess, well, more of a mess.” She paused. “I miss my friends.”

Coulson straightened up in his chair. “I know. I do too. I can’t believe Simmons is gone. I keep expecting her to be there, standing right next to Fitz. And he looks so normal. Sometimes I forget until he can’t say what he wants or I watch him struggling to do something that six months ago would have been child’s play for him.”

“Do you think we’re helping him…that I’m helping him? I feel so powerless.” She wanted to make things better and she just couldn’t. No one could.

“I know, but right now, if he needs Simmons, let him have her. As he heals, he’ll eventually be ready to say goodbye.” 

Skye tried to smile. “He’s really not ready. I was just down in the lab to see if he wanted to go to dinner tonight and he had one of the issues of Jemma’s biochem journals open to the middle of an article. Like she was there reading it while he picked at the cloaking technology.”

“Huh,” Coulson said, pushing himself up so he was standing and leaning on his desk.

“And she’s not always right with him. When we eat, Fitz doesn’t talk to her or look at empty space.”

Coulson shrugged. “Maybe he does better with other people around?”

“There are people in the lab and Fitz is always chatting with her there.”

“Where else would Simmons be?”

Skye quirked her lips. “And I’ve heard him talking at night to her like she’s in his room.”

“Now that one, I don’t need to know about.”

“What? Oh…ew.” Skye made a face. “Not what I was implying.” At all. He wouldn’t be doing anything like that with a hallucination, would he? He couldn’t, right? Jemma wasn’t there. And that was seriously enough thinking about her friend like that.

Coulson chuckled. “Give him the time he needs, Skye. Fitz is doing his best.”

****

Jemma tried to focus on the page she’d been reading. Fitz had set out the other two articles before reluctantly going to dinner with Skye and a couple of the new people whose names she didn’t know yet.

Giving up on reading about genetic markers for spot patterns in whatever frog species, she stood and stretched, then sat on the bed to wait for Fitz to come back. He’d left the playlist going for her, which she appreciated.

Being a ghost was a lot of doing nothing. She couldn’t turn the TV on or flip a book page or do much at all.

She wondered if she was even helping Fitz. After all, she was the reason he was going through all this. He was her best friend…

_Yeah, and you’re more than that_.

Was she still? Did she want to be?

When she was sixteen she’d wanted to be his girlfriend, but that hadn’t been what happened, and she’d squished those feeling into a very small box and thrown away the key.

But now that box’s lid had sprung wide open and she didn’t have any way to close it again.

What was she supposed to say to him? Hey, do you still like me? I know I’m a ghost and everything, but I think I have feelings for you too?

She wanted to scream.

Or cry.

Instead, she lay down on her side of the bed and sang along with the song playing.

_And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills…_


	3. Dancing Queen

This morning I woke up with this feeling

               -The Partridge Family, “I Think I Love You”

****

War was supposed to be hell, not life.

Fitz knew the anger wasn’t helping, but it was still hard to control. The blasted design was just out of reach. It was right below the horizon, like most of his words were.

He was tapping a wrench on the top of the table. If he could just…he only needed to…

With a yell, he turned and threw the wrench against the wall. It hit and dropped to the floor with a clatter. Fitz sank to sit on the linoleum, his hands gripping his hair. Nothing wanted to work in his head.

Jemma, who’d been reading over material about some theory to do with magnetic fields that he’d copied out of a textbook for her that morning, came over and sat beside him. She didn’t say anything, but just having her there was enough to calm him. Another member of the lab’s staff started to come over but Fitz held up a hand, and the guy went back to whatever it was he’d been doing.

“Can I help?” Jemma asked after a while.

“No,” he said. “Not b-b-because you can’t. I’m…tired. Useless” He was just bloody done for the day.

“I’m going to argue that point with you, but not here. Stop and get a sandwich in the cafeteria and let's meet in your room. Okay?”

“Sure.”

Jemma waited until he was standing before she took off down the hall, pirouetting around people to get out of their way.

He trudged to the mess, grabbed a prepackaged PB&J, some crisps, and a soda. As an afterthought, Fitz added an apple so Jemma wouldn’t bitch at him for not getting anything healthy.

It was strange how close they were now. She slept beside him on his bed, though they were both very careful not to get within touching distance. The ooky feeling was terrible when part of her accidently passed through him.

 It was intimate to lay there next to her for hours, as was brushing his teeth in front of her while she chattered on about whatever or spending nearly every evening reading or watching TV with her.

He’d wanted this, dreamed of it. Well, not exactly this, but them sharing a home and more of their lives than just a job. Only in those dreams, she’d been alive, and he could touch her. And she hadn’t been trapped with him.

That was the part that bothered him the most. Simmons didn’t have a choice. More than half an (American) football field between them and she’d be snapped back to his side. He’d thankfully never seen it, but she’d told him she’d experimented while he’d been unconscious in the hospital. It was a spherical field, she couldn’t go further vertically either.

He opened the door to his bunk to find Jemma standing in the middle of the room. He nodded at her and immediately started their playlist before spreading his lunch out on his desk.

“Fitz, is that all you got?” she said, peering over his shoulder. “At least there’s an apple.”

He shrugged.

There was a knock on the door as soon as he took a bite. Jemma hurried to sit on the chair in the corner of the room. She was always worried about accidently running into—through?—someone.

“It’s open,” he called.

It was one of the new guys, Mack, if Fitz remembered correctly.

“Hey,” the guy said. “I was looking for some help with one of the SUV’s engines and heard you were the man to ask.”

“Uh, sure,” Fitz said. Engines sounded nice after the morning he’d spend grappling with the cloaking problem. “B-b-but I…” He gestured at his food.

“Yeah, lunch first. I’ll see you in the garage later this afternoon.” Mack frowned. “Is that…are you listening to The Partridge Family?”

“Er, yeah.”

“Uh, Cool. _I Think I Love You_ is a classic. We’ll get some tunes going in the garage.”

Mack left, shutting the door behind him.

“He seems nice,” Jemma said.

Fitz hummed his agreement around a bite of PB&J.

Jemma was fidgeting where she was sitting as if she wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

“S-s-sorry,” he said after swallowing.

“For what?”

“That y-you can’t—”

“Can’t what?” She seemed lost.

“Be somewhere else.”

“Fitz, don’t you dare start in on that again. As you are well aware, I could be elsewhere. I’m not stuck in this room with you, or in the lab when you’re there. I could sleep in the next room over. It’s empty, you know.” She sounded cross. Could she be that far away for that long?

“You c-can?”

“Yes!”

“Then w-why, Jemma?” He abandoned his food to sit on the floor, his back against the bed. He turned so he could see her profile.

She was so lovely with her dark hair and fair skin with its dusting of freckles. Fitz wished, not for the first time, that he could map them with his tongue. Place kisses on that one there, by her ear, and that one there, on her neck.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to be with you. I like being with you.”

She wasn’t looking at him but slid off the chair to sit on the floor as well.

“Me too, b-b-but…”

“Don’t start with me!” She slammed her palms on the floor, though it didn’t make a noise. “You said you had feelings for me that were more than just friendly at the bottom of the ocean and didn’t give me two seconds to think about it before you blew the window. I’ve had lots of time to think about it now, but you haven’t said one more thing about us since waking up in hospital.” She turned her head to look at him. “I understand…if you don’t…anymore now…it’s okay.”

It took him a minute to parse it all out: she was having feelings for him but was worried he no longer returned them. Had she taken stupid pills?

“Jemma!” he said, then the rest he wanted to say got stuck. “Jemma! Yes!”

She looked puzzled for a moment, and he cursed himself as he willed her to see everything he was feeling for her.

Her confused expression abruptly disappeared, and her cheeks turned pink as a smile played over her lips. “That’s a big relief. I was going to feel dumb if you didn’t think of me anymore like that.”

“You?” he asked. Trying to squash down the hope bubbling up inside him.

“Oh, I’ve liked you for forever. I’d just learned how to ignore it because we were friends, but lately…all those feelings...” She trailed off, looking both uncomfortable and a little confused. Which was entirely her. She always played her cards close when it came to emotions and getting those few words out of her was the equivalent of someone else screaming them from the rooftops.

He dropped his head back against the bed and closed his eyes as he grinned. Jemma Simmons liked him.

“I’m sorry I’m like this, Fitz. A ghost, I mean, not that I’m sorry I like you. Because I’m not sorry about that. Not sorry at all.”

“B-b-babbling,” he whispered.

“Probably. But I can’t help it. After so many years…I don’t feel like being succinct right now. I will use all the words I want to tell you that you are more than a friend. That you’re not alone in feeling like that.”

His grin widened.

****

Jemma trailed behind Fitz, doing her hallway dance as he made a stop at the lab to grab his radio and iPod before heading to the garage.

He set the radio up in the corner, flipping it on before going to join Mack, who was peering under the hood of one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s big, black SUVs.

“There you are, “ Mack said. “See, I can’t quite figure out what might be—”

“S-seriously?” Fitz rolled his eyes. “It’s obviously the…the…” He snorted and took the spanner from Mack’s hands, bending over to reach whatever the problem part was.

Jemma tilted her head to the side to watch him. Nice view.

Er…she quickly turned and found a stool to sit on and studied the pattern of shiny flecks in the paint used to protect the concrete.

She’d gone barmy.

It was as if, since she’d decided she could like Fitz, her body had taken that as a personal commandment to get all hot and bothered.

Jemma had always found him cute, but all of a sudden she was having trouble thinking of him as anything less than sexy. When had that happened?

Only…it wasn’t him that was different. He was the same as always. It was her that’d changed.

She bit her lip and risked a peek. Fitz had rolled up his shirt sleeves and was holding something while gesturing with the other hand and brokenly explaining to Mack what was wrong with the engine. Jemma sighed as she watched Fitz’s fingers move. He really did have wonderful hands.

The song on the radio changed, and ABBA started playing softly in the background.

“ _Dancing Queen_?” Mack said, making a face. “What is with the seventies music and you, anyway?”

Fitz lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “It w-was…the r-radio at the hospital. Got used to it.”

Mack’s expression turned serious. “Do not tell me you have disco Stockholm syndrome.”

Fitz intently studied the part he was holding.

Jemma frowned. “It’s good music.” She shuffled through a few dance steps. “I’m rusty. Not that I was ever Ginger Rogers.”

“I-I’d like to t-take you…” Fitz said, voice low.

She slid a hand down her side. “That’d be nice. A place with drinks, and lots of people so we’d have to dance close.”

“Yeah…” His eyes got a little dreamy. “You c-could…w-wear a skirt.”

Mack chuckled.

“What?” Fitz asked. 

“It sounds like you’re doing a terrible job of flirting with thin air.”

Fitz dropped the part onto the table with a thunk and grabbed a rag to wipe the oil off his fingers. He sighed. “She’s n-n-not a hallu…halluci…”

“Hallucination? Then what is she?”

“A ghost.”

Mack looked completely taken aback. “How do you know?”

“She is.”

“She is right here,” Jemma said.

Fitz put a hand on his forehead. “I know.”

“Know what?” Mack asked.

“She’s th-th-there.” Fitz waved towards her general vicinity.

Mack rested his hands on the table. “Look, I know you see her, but she’s probably just a product of your imagination. You miss her. I get that. But maybe it’s time to let her go.”

Fitz crossed his arms. “Ghost,” he said again, his voice quiet but firm. Jemma was feeling more invisible than usual. She wished she could knock something off the table or bang on the wall. Anything so other people would believe him.

“You still haven’t said how you know that.” Mack’s eyes were kind. He was just trying to help, even if he was making her want to scream.

“She’s r-real. If she was a ha-hallu-if I was m-making her up…she’d have less clothing on!”

Mack let out a bark of laughter, but Jemma’s mouth dropped open. “Leopold Fitz!”

He immediately turned bright red. “S-sorry.” He looked at Mack. “Uh, I’m…I’m in trouble.”

Mack shook his head and then focused more or less on where she was standing. “Simmons, I need Fitz to focus on this engine, so don’t tell him off for thinking you’d look good naked.” Fitz’s blush progressed to incandescent.

“Honestly,” she sighed. “You only said less clothing. Where did Mack get naked from?”

Fitz shrugged and made a big show of looking at the part he was currently working on.

She was so going to remind him of this later.

For another twenty very boring minutes she watched the top of his head as he slowly became absorbed in what he was doing.

It was annoying to not have a project of her own, and nothing in the garage remotely interested her. She tried looking over Mack’s shoulder as he adjusted the SUV’s fuel injector but didn’t have any ideas for improvements.

Fitz raised his head at that moment and caught her eye, giving her a ‘what are you doing?’ look.

For lack of a better idea, she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out.

He laughed, abruptly cutting himself off as Mack focused on him. Mack frowned, glanced over his shoulder, shook his head, and went back to the fuel injector.

Fitz looked at her again, and she puffed out her cheeks, rolled her eyes, and pushed the tip of her nose up with one finger.

Fitz covered his mouth as he laughed, leaving a streak of oil on one cheek. She giggled as well.

Mack sighed, not taking his attention from the engine part. “She’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?”

****

Mack shut the SUV’s hood carefully and wiped his hands off. It was a job well done, and the engine was purring like a kitten now. He was sure Fitz had even made a few modifications to make it run more efficiently. The kid was a wonder, even if he was on the decidedly odd side.

“Hey.” A female agent with a coffee cup in hand poked her head into the garage. “Director wants to see you in his office.”

“Thanks,” Mack said, but the woman was already gone. What could Coulson possibly want?

Mack finished putting away the tools he’d been using all afternoon before cleaning up and heading to the Director’s office. He knocked on the door.

Coulson opened it for him.

“What’s up?” Mack asked as he entered and found a chair in which to sprawl.

“I wanted to ask you about Fitz, how’s he doing?”

Mack sighed. “Turbo’s doing alright. Did a bang-up job this afternoon. Would be easier if he wasn’t talking to someone that’s not there the whole time.”

“He and Simmons were inseparable. Still are, apparently.” Coulson leaned a hip against his desk.

“I played along, seemed easier than arguing with him.” Mack shifted forward. “Guy said she was a ghost.”

“You don’t look like you’re too sure what to think.”

“I think almost getting drowned and his girlfriend dying knocked a few screws loose in the guy’s head.”

“Maybe.”

Mack rubbed at a temple. “He probably just needs time.”

“Maybe.”

“Enough about Fitz. How about you give me a chance to peek under Lola’s hood?”

“No.”


	4. Tangled Up in Blue

Lord knows I've paid some dues

               -Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up In Blue”

****

Fitz was dreaming about something very pleasant, at least until a persistent sound—the alarm?—interrupted him.

He blinked awake. No alarm. And it was still obviously night. The radio was softly playing Bob Dylan.

“Fitz!” Jemma’s voice hissed from where she was sitting on the chair in the corner of his room. What was she doing over there?

“Huh?” he managed to say as he sat up. “Everything okay?” There was a distinct lack of loud buzzers or red lights, but that didn’t mean everything was perfectly alright.

“Er, yes? No?” She was blushing.

He rubbed his forehead and squinted at her in the dim light.

“You were dreaming,” she said, looking flustered.

Belatedly, he became aware of exactly what kind of dream he must have been having. He cock was hard, and his groin ached slightly with pent-up need. Damn. If he was alone, he’d toss off, but not with Jemma sitting there and he couldn’t tolerate asking her to leave, even for the few minutes it’d take him.

A set of blue balls wasn’t going to kill him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and settled down on his side, facing her.

Her cheeks had become an alarming shade of red, but he recognized the calculating look in her eyes. Simmons was thinking.

About him.

He closed his eyelids and fervently wished she’d let the subject drop.

Because that always worked.

“I’ve been thinking…” she started.

Uh-oh. Fitz squeezed his eyes closed even tighter.

“Fitz, have you been masturbating?”

He groaned. “Are you r-r-really asking me about mas…mast…wanking?”

“Of course, it’s a healthy part of anyone’s life.”

Brilliant. Now he was thinking about Jemma touching herself. That was helping his boner. He pulled the covers over his head.

“Well?” She sounded cross now. Which also didn’t help reverse the direction his blood was flowing in. He had a lot of fantasies that started with her being brassed off at him, her face flushed and eyes flashing. He’d be lying if sometimes he didn’t press her buttons just to see her get worked up.

He pulled the blanket down just far enough so he could peek at her with one eye.

“Why do you think I’m not?” he countered.

“Because I’m with you all the time.” She frowned, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “Your showers aren’t even very long.”

“I don’t like being away from you,” he said without really thinking.

Jemma’s expression turned into one of shock and then softened into something much warmer that he didn’t dare name. “Oh, Fitz,” she breathed, then sighed and the corners of her lips turned up in a slight smile.

It was a lot to take in, and he felt his mind start to stumble over itself. He pinched the bridge of his nose. After being so familiar with the boundaries of their relationship, this shiny new not just friends stuff was scary, even if he did desperately want it.

“Now,” Jemma said, an odd note creeping into her voice. “Has your arousal waned?”

He shook his head. Not when she was sitting there looking like that.

“Then I believe you should go ahead and stimulate yourself to release.”

She was trying to murder him in cold blood.

“Uh.” He sat up again, the blanket sliding to his waist. “I’m not sure that self-gr-gr” He waved his hand as the word wouldn’t come out.

“Gratification?” Jemma supplied, then barged ahead. “Yes, it’s a good idea.”

Of course she thought it was, it was her idea.

“You have lotion on the bottom shelf of your nightstand. That should work for lubrication, shouldn’t it?”

He dropped he head into his hands. “You know I have dry skin. It’s the base’s air exchangers. There’s no humidity.”

“Oh, honestly.”

“Fine, and I use it to wank.”

“What’s it smell like?”

The question was so out of the blue that both his eyebrows shot up and he dropped his hands away from his face. Jemma was leaning forward in her chair, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. His cock twitched.

“Er, it’s that ch-ch-cherry and almond kind,” he said.

Jemma shifted slightly in the chair. “Yes, you’ve always liked that one, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.” He felt like he was missing something. “So…are you going to go out into the hall? I can call when I’m done.”

Her eyes met his. She took a deep breath. “I’d rather stay and help.”

“Help?” His voice reached an embarrassingly high pitch.

Hurt flashed across her face. “I can’t touch you, but I’m not completely useless. I can provide visual stimulation…if…if you want me to.”

He stared at her while his hands twisted into the sheets. Every daydream he’d ever had of being with her, from snogging her senseless to throwing her down in the middle of the lab and rodgering her in public—so everyone would know she was bloody taken—went rushing through his mind. His tongue wouldn’t work.

Her face fell. “I know we only said a few days ago that we are more than friends and this is all really weird and more than anything I want to be able to crawl on the bed with you and kiss you…so much, Fitz. I want it more than I want a mug of tea, and I really miss tea…” she trailed off.

He couldn’t make his brain and mouth connect, and he knew he was staring like an idiot.

“Um.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry, I guess, I thought—” She started to stand.

“No!” he barked, making her jump. “Speak…” He snapped his fingers and cursed himself. “Me!”

Jemma immediately looked relieved and sank back into the chair. “You can’t say anything at the moment?”

He nodded.

“Do you want me to stay? To help?”

He nodded much more vigorously.

Her smile lit up the room. “Thank goodness. I was really worried there for a moment.”

Later, when the wires connecting his brain and mouth weren’t shorting out, he’d tell her just how much he needed her always, for everything.

To make sure she understood that he knew what he wanted, he reached down and snagged the lotion, pumping a dollop into his palm before dropping the bottle beside him on the bed.

Jemma’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. “I think I know just what you like. It’s not as if I haven’t been paying any attention to you for the last ten years.” She pulled her jumper over her head and dropped to the floor at her feet. Her hands went to the buttons of her shirt, and she quickly popped them open and removed her blouse.

Fitz’s eyes got caught on the graceful way her neck met her shoulder. It was almost the same as the curve of the graphical representation of the mathematical expression—

Fuck, she’d taken her bra off.

****

Jemma’s stomach was a mass of butterflies.

What if he was disappointed in her? Or her nipples were the wrong color? She’d been told that once, that they weren’t pink enough. Fitz had rolled his eyes and told her the git who’d said had been watching too many pornos.

But Fitz hadn’t seen her nipples before.

It was painfully obvious when he figured out she’d removed her bra. His eyes went saucer wide and darted back and forth between her breasts.

His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Jemma…” he finally managed to gasp, his voice raw and needy.

Her doubts fled. The sound of her name rolled off his tongue in a way that made her breath catch.

Feeling bold, she ran her hands up from her waist to cup her breasts and roll the nipples between her fingers.

Fitz made a choked noise and the hand with the lotion in the palm headed towards his groin.

“Wait, stop!” she said, biting back a giggle. “The quilt’s in the way.”

He looked down, completely puzzled, then scowled. Abruptly, he was a flurry of movement as he kicked the blankets away and one-handedly got his pants down and off. He ended up with his head and shoulders propped against the headboard, his legs stretched out, and his erect cock resting on his belly.

Her pussy fluttered at the sight, even as her mind seemed rather confused. This was Fitz. Her friend. Her confidant…her other half…her…

Oh bother, she really wanted to fuck him.

“Fitz,” she breathed, pinching her nipples hard. He had a very nice phallus. Irritation flashed through her. If she’d had any idea that was what she’d been missing out on—

He wrapped his hand around his shaft and swept up and down.

She shuddered and rolled her hips.

“Jemma,” he said again in the same devastating way he had before.

For a second, she tried to corral herself, rein in her raging desire by reminding herself that it was all simple biological processes. Hormonal responses to visual stimuli.

It was very agreeable visual stimuli.

That she wanted to observe at a much closer range.

Jemma slowly stood and walked to the foot of the bed. Fitz’s eyes followed her as he continued to fist his cock. His hair was disheveled, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble. Add in his erection and reclining posture, and he looked thoroughly debauched. It was difficult to believe this was her straight-laced lab partner, this man who was groaning as he pumped his dick.

She crawled onto the mattress beside his legs, as close as she could without risking the funky buzzing feeling, and sat up on her heels, running her hands over her breasts again as she pushed her chest forward.

Fitz moaned, and his hand sped up. “What w-w-would you…you…”

She pursed her lips. What would she do with him if she could? “There are lots of variables to that problem, but I think, right this second, what I would do to you would be to straddle your legs and lower my head down to provide oral stimulation to your penis.”

“Jemma!” He looked shocked, then his thighs trembled, and he whimpered as he tightened his grip.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pursing her lips. That hadn’t sounded exactly how she meant it to. “I should use less clinical terms.” She paused, feeling a little silly and a lot turned on. Her belly was molten with desire. “Um, Fitz, I’d like to suck your cock until you came in my mouth.”

He groaned.

“And of course I would swallow.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyes widening.

She watched in abject fascination as Fitz’s body tensed up, his hips thrust up raggedly off the bed, and his cock bucked in his hand as he came. His release spattered his stomach and chest. Spent, he collapsed back down on the mattress.

Jemma had never seen anything sexier in her life.

Her own body ached for release, but that was impossible. A very frustrating impossible, but Fitz looked satisfied enough for the both of them. And unlike with eating, she didn’t feel left out.

His happiness was her happiness…oh dear. She loved him, didn’t she?

Feeling shaky, Jemma stood and retrieved her clothes, turning her back on Fitz while she dressed.

She wasn’t even just starting to develop warm and fuzzing feelings towards him. She was head over heels in love. Which was inconvenient when she was dead and a ghost. Why couldn’t this have happened sometime before she could pass through solid objects?

It was dumb, and unfair and…tears slid down her cheeks.

She turned around to find that Fitz had pulled the quilt back up.

His expression became alarmed. “Crying? W-w-why? Me?”

She shook her head. “No, Fitz.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I want to make you a sandwich.” The last came as something close to a sob. She was so sick of being insubstantial.

Fitz looked pained. She knew it hurt him that he couldn’t fix things. Finally, he simply patted the bed next to him. She lay down beside him, careful not to accidently pass through any part of him because the universe had decided she wasn’t allowed that kind of comfort.

He kept his gaze locked with hers. “Jemma,” he said. “You’re…you’re…you’re…everything.”

“You’re my everything, too.” It was scary how true that was.

His smile widened, even as he drifted off to sleep. Typical.

She lay in the dark, watching him breathe deeply in and out, and struggled not to give into the despair that said someday he’d want a flesh and blood girlfriend, and she’d be forgotten. Maybe she’d just disappear.

Jemma had to believe that wouldn’t happen. They’d find a way. And then she would never, ever be away from Fitz, the universe would just have to deal with them being always together. They’d be like Rubidium Fluoride. Completely like it with a boiling point of more than—

She scrunched up her nose. It was more than 1000 degrees Celsius, she was sure, but couldn’t remember the exact temperature. And it wasn’t like she could pick up a tablet and look. Drat. Or even poke Fitz and ask.

She thought about trying to wake him up, but he snorted slightly and rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow.

He was adorable.

She made a mental note to ask him the boiling point in the morning. 


	5. Love Train

Please don't miss this train at the station

               -The O’Jays, “Love Train”

****

Jemma kept blushing.

Every time she glanced at Fitz, her cheeks would heat up again. And it wasn’t like he was trying to be anything other than his normal self as he yawned, stretched, and padded into the bathroom.

He opened the bathroom door with his toothbrush in his mouth and mumbled something about needing to do laundry, and she could barely look at him.

She wanted to tackle him. Kiss him.

Do a lot of things to him. It was all new, but not new, and—gah.

Fitz played with the end of his cardigan sleeves as he made his way to the lab, also not saying much. Though he looked a lot less happy than she would have expected after the night they’d shared.

He claimed his usual corner of the lab and pulled up his work on the cloaking device, though she knew him well enough to see that he wasn’t really paying attention to it.

She didn’t know what was going on. “What about if we tried changing the material in the harmonizer’s circuit—”

“Don’t try to help” he snapped.

“Fitz…what’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.”

“Yes, it is. And don’t tell me nothing when it obviously is something. You know I hate that.”

Fitz braced his hands on the table, still not looking at her. When he spoke, his voice was low. “Did you think I wo…wo…wouldn’t notice?”

She was lost, which was not a comfortable feeling. “Notice what?”

“Last night. You didn’t…c-c-…” He slammed his hands down, rattling the stuff on the table.

Oh.

That’s what was upsetting him.

“You’re mad because I didn’t come?”

“You didn’t…” he waved a hand. “Trousers. You didn’t even take off your bloody t-trousers.”

Her shoulders slumped. She probably should have communicated better about this last night. She couldn’t get off. She’d tried before, but just couldn’t. Arousal was most certainly possible, but no completion. It was annoying, but not the be all end all of her sexuality.

“Fitz—” she tried.

“Don’t.” He hung his head. “I…just don’t. I know I’m not…what you…l-like.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t n-need your pity.”

What? What was he on about? Not what she liked? But she liked very much. If there was a Wikipedia page on her, under sexual prefrences it’d just be his picture.

“Stop. Stop, Fitz.” She curled her hands into fists. Obviously, he’d jumped to some massively wrong conclusions and all the best ways of reassuring him, like falling into his arms, weren’t things she could do. 

“You can’t even look at me—” He broke off and pushed himself upright, walking away from her with his hands on his hips. Jemma gaped at his back.

“Are you quite done?”

He didn’t respond. This wasn’t fair. Jemma wanted to knock something over or throw something. Maybe knock something over and then throw it at Fitz.

Or not, she wasn’t very good at being violent.

“It’s your turn to listen to me,” she said. “I want you. I was having trouble looking at you this morning because I’m embarrassed—”

He put a hand over his eyes and tilted his head back.

He was lucky she couldn’t throw something at him, or he’d be getting hit in the head with a centrifuge machine. “I’m embarrassed because of how turned on I get every time I looked at you,” she yelled. Fitz went completely still. “And yes, I didn’t get off last night because, as a ghost, I can’t. It didn’t mean I wasn’t very into what we were doing.” She looked down at the floor. “And, for the record, I’ve always thought you’re handsome. And kind of pasty, but in a good way. And now…all I want to do is touch you. I want to be locked in a room with you for weeks with nothing to do but make love and I can’t even touch you!”

She spun on her heel and dropped her face into her hands.

“Jemma,” Fitz said softly.

She turned back around and lifted his gaze to his. “I want you. I love you. And what’s the boiling temperature of Rubidium Fluoride?”

“I love you too.” His chest was heaving, and his fingers were twitching on his hips. “Also, 1408 degrees C-Cel…”

“Celsius…I want to kiss you very badly.”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Coulson stuck his head in the door. “Is now a bad time?” She glared at him. It was terrible timing. She’d let slip she loved Fitz and…oh, he’d said it back. She was tachycardic and went to find a stool to sit on as she tried to calm herself down to some semblance of normalcy.

“Yes—” Fitz said. “Er, no.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jemma and I were…”

Coulson crossed his arms. “Just checking on you, making sure you’ve got everything you need for the cloaking project.”

“Almost everything.” Fitz tapped his temple before letting his hand drop. “Sorry.”

Jemma’s heart ached. If only she could say something, defend him. He was always improving and already come so far. To see him put himself down hurt.

“Fitz,” she said. “You’re going to keep getting better.”

He gave her a half smile.

Coulson patted Fitz’s arm and then closed his hand around it, leading him further away from the other occupants of the lab.

“As much as I need you working on the stealth,” Coulson said, voice low, “I have another project for you today.” He pulled a few papers from his pocket and handed them to Fitz. Jemma moved so she could see. The papers had various charts and graphs describing an artifact that was clearly not terrestrial in origin.

Fitz’s brow furrowed as he flipped through the pages.

“It’s info from Fury’s toolbox. We’re going looking for this object. It’s in a box, in a warehouse full of other, similar boxes. I need something that’ll help us pick out this precise object, fast. A way to get the needle out of the haystack. Can I count on you?”

“Yeah, of course.” Fitz looked up. “Are you s-sure…me?”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it. So flip on your radio and get to work. Just don’t go spreading it around, this is strictly need-to-know.”

“Jemma—”

Coulson nodded. “Not a problem if she knows.”

Fitz, mumbling to himself, turned and strode to the radio, turning it on as Skye walked into the lab.

“Hey, guys.” She raised her brows at Coulson.

“New project,” he said without elaborating.

Skye put her hand on one of the lab benches and drummed her fingers. “Ah, well. Fitz, if you get done how about we meet up in the rec room after dinner for a movie night. You’ve been hanging out by yourself a lot lately, and I thought it might be nice, y’know, if you were more social for at least one night.”

Fitz rubbed his eyebrow with a finger. “Um…”

“He’ll be there,” Coulson said. “If he gets done.”

Fitz held up his hands in obvious defeat.

“It’ll be fun,” Jemma said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt because it would be good for him. She’d end up standing in a corner trying to stay out of everyone’s way but didn’t want that to stop Fitz from going.

“Sure,” Fitz said. “I’ll be there, Skye.”

“Cool,” she replied with a smile.

Mack interrupted them, stepping into the lab. “Is that The O’Jays’ _Love Train_?”

Skye crossed her arms and looked askance at him.

Fitz fluttered a hand at everyone as he went back to studying the papers he was holding, already busy working on the problem.

****

Coulson had sprung for an impressively sized TV for the common room, though the movie collection was still sparse. Fitz would have to ask about that. There wasn’t a single one of his favorites, which were all special effects laden horror movies. He enjoyed figuring out how the effects had been done, especially if they were practical and not just CGI.

“What should we watch?” Jemma asked. She was curled up on one side of the couch. Skye was on the other, having just sat down with a bowl of popcorn. Leaving him the middle, which would be weird. He guessed it was the blasted floor, then. He didn’t want Jemma to take the middle because Skye might accidently put a foot or arm through her.

He picked up the paltry stack of DVDs.

Really?

The one on the top was _Ghost_ with Demi Moore. He grimaced.

“What’s wrong?” Jemma asked.

He held up the case after checking to make sure Skye was busy adding salt to the popcorn.

Jemma’s face paled, and she shook her head. Fitz dropped the entire thing behind the entertainment center.

Sorting through the rest, which consisted of two romantic comedies, a period piece, and _Jaws_ , he went for the latter.

“That’ll work, it’s been ages,” Jemma said.

Skye’s lips quirked. “Sure. Sharks. Why not? It’s not going to bother you, is it?”

He looked at Jemma.

“No,” she said quietly. “Water, the ocean, none of that is a problem. It’s being alone, or not being able to wake you up, that’s scary.”

“We’re good,” he said. “I don’t remember anything after the container.”

Skye smiled weakly. “Let me know if we need to stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, and Jemma echoed him.

It was nice to feel cared for.

The movie began, and the iconic music played over the surround sound speakers. Fitz reached over and claimed the bowl of popcorn.

He was only half paying attention to the movie. Mostly, he was thinking about Jemma’s tits. Which was what he’d been doing the entire day. Except for a little while when he’d been deep into the design for the detectors he’d created for Coulson. Those had ended up being fairly simple, pencil-sized devices with an indicator that went from red to green if the properties of the 084 were found.

The rest of the time it’d been boobs.

And that she’d said she loved him.

It was a lot to take in, and it all made his insides fizzy.

Especially the boobs. They were perfect.

Fitz slumped against the front of the couch. Jemma was being oddly silent. She usually started in on her rant about inaccurate shark behavior long before the first girl was eaten. When Jemma did speak up, her voice was tight and low

“If I could…I mean, I know it’s impossible, but if I could possess somebody like Patrick Swayze does with Whoopie Goldberg in _Ghost_ , would you want me to do it?”

Fitz shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth because that was a loaded question. He glanced over his shoulder at Jemma, who was frowning and looking at the TV.

He finished chewing and leaned closer to her. “Like, if you could po-poss…be in Skye’s body right now?”

She nodded. 

“I guess…I’d do like in the movie? Hold you. Kiss you.”

Jemma’s lower lip crept out a fraction. “Why Skye’s body? It could be anybody’s.”

Crap.

“Because she’s right bloody there.”

“Are you talking about me?” Skye asked.

Fitz waved a hand at her, and she narrowed her eyes but went back to watching the movie.

“What if it was Mack or Coulson? Would you still kiss me if I was in Coulson’s body?”

Fitz sighed. There was no winning this.

“If you wanted me to, then yes. It wouldn’t matter.”

Skye reached over and grabbed the popcorn bowl out of his hands. “Would you quit whispering?” she said. “It’s distracting.”

Fitz tried very hard to not visualize kissing Coulson, because: no. Hopefully, Jemma wasn’t going to call his bluff on that one.

It took another ten minutes before Jemma relaxed and settled into her usual commenting pattern.

After the fifteenth time she said some variation of, “a female _Carcharodon carcharias_ would never behave in such a manner.” Fitz dropped his head back and sighed.

“Care to share with the rest of us?” Skye asked.

“Jemma likes this movie, but she has…has…thoughts.”

Skye raised an eyebrow. “About the scientific inaccuracies?”

“Be glad you can’t hear her.”

“Hey!” Jemma said, and his stomach jolted as she stuck a finger through his shoulder for a second.

Fitz rubbed at the spot while Skye gave him a questioning look. “I got in trouble,” Fitz mumbled.

Skye rolled her eyes.

“Hey, what’s going on in here?” Hunter vaulted over the back of the couch and landed on the middle seat, forcing Jemma to pull her legs up. Lance had a six-pack in his hand, and he gave one of the beers to Skye.

“ _Jaws_ ,” she said, pointing the neck of her bottle towards the screen.

“Oh, the one with the scary shark. I like this one. My ex-wife, not so much.” He frowned. “She kind of more was the shark.”

Fitz managed not to groan.

“You want a beer, mate?” Hunter passed Fitz a bottle.

It was some American stuff hardly better than water, but Fitz wasn’t about to scoff at free beer. “Cheers,” he said, popping the top.

There was the tiniest sound from behind him. Fitz craned his neck so he could see Jemma. She was busily avoiding looking at him.

“What?” he asked.

She pursed her lips, and her eyes remained glued to the screen. “Nothing.”

“No nothings.” She hadn’t let him get away with it earlier and she wasn’t getting a pass now.

“Oh, fine. I’m jealous. I can’t have a beer, or a shot, or anything to make even a few hours of being like this easier.”

Fitz put his beer down on the coffee table. “Then I won’t either.”

“No,” Jemma clenched then relaxed her fingers. “I don’t mean for you to do that. Just one, though, because of your meds. I can’t carry you back to our room if you’re pissed.”

“Not if you...”

Hunter was darting his gaze between Fitz and Jemma.  Fitz had to remind himself that Lance couldn’t see or hear her.

“What’s going on?” Hunter asked.

“Jemma, being in-incor…a ghost, can’t drink. So I’m not either.”

“It’s not your fault she can’t.”

Fitz’s didn’t know how to respond to that. And it was his fault. He took a shuddering breath. He had tried to save her and—

“Hunter,” Skye said. “It’s kind of complicated.”

“Well, whatever happened, she shouldn’t begrudge the man a drink.”

“She’s not,” Fitz mumbled, but Hunter didn’t seem to hear.

Jemma was frowning. “I’m really not. Please, drink it. For me.”

“There was one time my ex-wife—” Hunter paused to take a pull of his own beer.

“I said: she’s not,” Fitz tried again, voice raised. “Jemma wants me to.”

Skye smiled. “Then better do what she says.”

“Fine.” He picked the beer back up, feeling outnumbered. He shuffled sideways so he could see Jemma. She was grinning and miming holding up a drink of her own. Fitz’s irritation at the entire situation evaporated. He inclined his bottle towards her imaginary one.

“To us,” she said, miming clicking bottles together.

A goofy smile stretched the corners of his mouth. “To us.”

“Uh,” Hunter said. “Did he just…”

Skye shrugged. “Watch the movie.”


	6. Dream On

You got to lose to know how to win

               -Aerosmith, “Dream On”

****

Jemma was sitting up in bed, humming along with the song on the radio— _hold me closer, tiny dancer_ —but her mind was actually back on the biological sample in the lab’s freezer that May had brought from the suspected Hydra agent.

Basic blood work had been completed on the specimen, and the individual identified, but she knew there were still a lot of secrets that bit of flesh could give up. Only no one in SHIELD had the right expertise to carry out the studies at the moment because that’d been her job.

Beside her, Fitz snorted in his sleep and rolled onto his side.

It was hard to remember she couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t smooth down his mussed hair or straighten his shirt which was twisted around his shoulder. So many couldn’ts and unable-tos and why-didn’t-I-do-that-years-agos.

Drawing her knees up, Jemma rested her elbows on them. She tried to ignore everything around her and focus on making a list of tests she’d like to run, if she could, along with what cross-section samples, tissue dyes, and other supplies she’d need.

“C-can’t sleep?” Fitz groggily asked sometime later.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. But what’s the ma..ma…what’s wrong?”

“There’s that tissue sample in the freezer.”

There were several long moments of silence, then a groan. “Do you w-want to…work on it?”

“Yes.”

Another groan.

“But I can’t. I can’t write anything down or prep a slide for the microscope.” She hated feeling useless.

“N-no one there, now,” Fitz said. It was the middle of the night. “You tell me w-what to do and I’ll…” he mimed writing.

“You will?”

“N-no, I was ki-kid…joking. I’m going back to sleep.” He closed his eyes.

“Fitz!”

He grinned and sat up. “C’mon.”

Jemma felt like she was falling in love all over again. Who else would get up at stupid-o’clock in the morning to help her do experiments and transcribe, and most likely type, the report for her?

Fitz really was the best friend…best boyfriend? Her heart clenched. Yes, she guessed he was. The best boyfriend she could imagine having.

If it weren’t for the whole being a ghost thing, she’d consider herself quite lucky.

****

Phil was exhausted.

The logistics of being director were a nightmare. Actually, he’d take a nightmare right now, because it would mean he was asleep.

His bed was calling his name as he trudged down the corridor and he imagined a solid three hours would make him feel much better.

Or a year. A year of sleep.

Eh, didn’t they call that being dead?

That hadn’t worked out so great for him the first time.

Maybe he could swing four hours.

Fitz’s voice filtering out of the lab made him stop in his tracks. What the hell was he doing up?

“Yes, it’s the r-right qua..qua…amount!” Fitz put his hands on his hips as he glared at thin air.

Spooky.

“I do remember!” He gave an exasperated huff. “Fine. I’ll ch-check.” He picked up a slide off the counter and examined it. “It’s ready.”

Coulson’s brow furrowed as he watched Fitz drag a microscope to the edge of the counter, put the slide in the holder, and switch to a different lens. He fiddled with the knobs that focused the image without ever looking through the eyepiece.

“How’s that?” he asked. He made another tiny adjustment to the knob. “Better?”

Fitz sat down and picked up a pencil. There was a laptop open to one side as well.

Coulson knew his mouth was hanging open as he watched Fitz jot down notes.

“W-wait, th-that last bit again,” Fitz said, not looking up from the paper.

That was more than spooky. If a report showed up on Coulson’s desk tomorrow on the Creel sample that made obvious sense and was full of information not usually taught in engineering programs—

He shook his head.

Impossible.

Except for the part where Jemma had been exposed to an alien virus. She’d been “cured”—whatever that meant—but…maybe…

Boy, it’d been a long day.

Tomorrow wasn’t going to be easier. His agents had to get into that government warehouse and track down the 084. It was going to be a balancing act. They needed to find it fast, which meant more people, but his staffing was already at rock bottom.

It was going to be all hands on deck. And it looked like Fitz might be ready for a field run. Especially since this one shouldn’t be complicated. The kid needed to know he was still part of the team.

Coulson knocked on the glass wall of the lab, making Fitz jump, before opening the door wider.

“Yes, s-sir,” Fitz said, nervously clutching the hems of his cardigan’s sleeves.

“Fitz, I wanted that report yesterday, and you’re coming along on the op tomorrow, got it?”

“Er, y-yes, sir.” Fitz shared a glance with empty space and Coulson had to stop himself from squinting. Whatever Fitz was seeing, it was invisible to everyone else and the entire range of other spectrums available on the security cameras. He might have checked more than once.

Not that Fitz hadn’t always been able to see Jemma better than anyone.

And Coulson wasn’t about to turn down even invisible and possibly imaginary help tomorrow. They really needed more agents. 

He waved a hand at Fitz in acknowledgment and returned to thoughts of his bed.

Three and a half hours should do it.

He hoped.

****

One typed report—with appropriate graphs—later, along with a few hours of sleep, and Fitz hit the snooze button for the second time on his alarm.

Jemma was out cold. Even the alarm’s beeping hadn’t woken her.

He dozed, but when the ruddy thing beeped again, he turned it off and sat up.

Jemma didn’t budge. Not that she had to get ready for the day.

Being a ghost seemed to come with a side of perfect makeup and hair that stayed in place.

He wanted to run his fingers through it. Mess it up.

Kiss her.

Her lips would be warm and soft against his, her hands, which were so capable, able to work a delicate scientific instrument or provide comfort to a patient, would be gentle as they touched his face, his neck, his shoulders, his—

Shite.

He looked down at the way his cock was tenting out the front of his pants.

Brilliant.

Fitz bolted for the bathroom, leaning back against the door once he’d shut it.

That was the last thing Jemma needed to wake up to, him being a horny bastard from watching her sleep fully clothed.

Especially when she couldn’t get off.

She could cry. She could spit. But she didn’t have to eat, didn’t have any elimination processes, and she couldn’t bloody well orgasm.

They had to fix this no body situation before they both went completely off their rockers.

So far they had a limited data set. He needed time to set up actual experiments. Maybe it was a phase shift or a temporal issue. Which didn’t explain why he could see her and no one else. His brain injury mostly certainly wouldn’t have had that as a side effect.

Clenching his jaw, Fitz started the shower.

First things first, if he was planning to do anything today, like ride along on a mission he had no business being a part of, he was going to have to get rid of his boner.

Part of him was very confused why he couldn’t just go wake up the gorgeous woman sleeping in his bed and present her with his arousal and let nature take its course from there.

Though he had the suspicion Jemma would grump about being woken up and tell him to wank anyway.

But maybe not? Maybe she liked morning sex. He had no idea. It felt weird anytime he figured out there was something he didn’t know about her.

There was no telling his lizard brain that Jemma wasn’t currently available, full stop.

Mostly his lizard brain wanted to see her tits again. Soon.

He stepped into the shower and tilted his head back as his imagination went into overdrive. Tossing off would be good for him. Jemma had said so the other night.

He focused on his fantasy.

It was the lab with just him and Simmons in it. He was leaning on a bench, putting the finishing touches on a completely brilliant set of equations, when Jemma walked over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You need to take a break,” she said, voice sultry. She was dressed in a buttoned-up lab coat, her legs bare, her feet in trainers because even his fantasy version of her wouldn’t completely neglect laboratory safety precautions.

He shifted to face her and raised an eyebrow. “Do I? I don’t suppose you have any ideas about what kind of a break I need?” (Imaginary him absolutely did not stutter.)

She grabbed the front of his shirt. “Of course I do. I’m always prepared.” She pulled him along with her as she walked backwards until they reached a chair—four legs, no arms—that he was certain didn’t belong in any lab. She sat down and reached up, pulling out the pencil that’d…wait, too unrealistic.

He quirked his lips, and his hand paused. How would she have her hair? Ah, right. He continued.

One of Fantasy-Jemma’s hands combed through the end of her ponytail, then she undid the top buttons of her lab coat and pulled it down, exposing her shoulders and beautiful breasts. The tawny tips were hardened peaks, and Fitz moaned as she cupped them with her hands.

There was no going back for him now. Knowing how Jemma looked with no top on was like the bloody apple in the garden. Only he was closer to paradise now than he’d ever been, what with her loving him.

He tugged harder at his trouser snake.

In his fantasy, Jemma, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, undid the front of his jeans and pushed them and his pants down. She wrapped a hand around his prick and swept her palm up and down his length a few times. He groaned.

Looking coy, she let him go and pulled a bottle of lube from the pocket of the jacket and drizzled it over and between her breasts. God, he liked how she prepared.

He was panting.

She grabbed his cock again and encouraged him to step forward as she arched her back and pushed her chest towards him. Obligingly, he slid his dick over her chest, and she pressed her perfect tits together. They were warm and soft as they pillowed his—

Fitz gasped as his cock spasmed in his hand and his release hit the floor of the tub. He looked down accusingly at his prick. Really? He’d just been getting to the good part.

With a sigh, he grabbed his shampoo. Fine.

He really did like her tits.

****

Jemma woke up to an empty bed and the sound of the shower running.

She sat up cross-legged on the mattress.

It’d been nice last night to feel useful, but the fact she’d had to rely on Fitz for everything was driving home that she wasn’t a person at the moment.

How long would Fitz put up with someone he couldn’t touch being his girlfriend?

To her horror, she felt tears prickling her eyes.

It wasn’t even that time of the month. Not that Jemma had that time anymore.

What if she was stuck like this? She’d be taking so much of life away from Fitz. No real marriage, no chance at a family no…anything. He’d probably end up without any friends at all. Or a job.

What if every homeless person she’d ever seen on a street corner muttering to themselves was actually someone who had a ghost significant other?

She was ugly crying now.

The tears wouldn’t stop. She was literally nothing.  

The bathroom door opened and Fitz, a towel wrapped around him, exited along with a bunch of steam. His face was relaxed, right up until he saw her.

“Jemma!” He was on the bed in the next instant, his hand uselessly fluttering just out of range of her knee.

She hugged herself tighter.

He mirrored her posture but grabbed one of the bed pillows to clutch in his arms.

Terrific. Fitz could hug a pillow but not her.

“Sorry,” she sniffed.

“I-I’m not un-under…getting it.”

“Fitz, what if I’m like this forever? A ghost. Thin air you talk to while people look at you strangely? Sure, you’re fine with it now, but what about ten years from now? Twenty? I’ll just be the proverbial albatross.”

“No,” he said, his face darkening with anger. He threw the pillow he was holding, and it smacked the wall.

“It would be hard because I can’t get that far away from you without being snapped back, but I can just always be in another room. On the other side of a wall. Pretty soon you’ll think you simply made me up. You can meet a nice girl, buy a house together. Eat breakfast together in the breakfast nook and I’ll…I’ll…” She couldn’t continue around the tears. She’d be outside the house. Listening to them talk, watch movies, make love. She covered her face with her hands.

“S-stop this…this…bullshit!” Fitz yelled, making her glance up at him, her sight fuzzy with tears. “I…no…we will fix this. Our s-s-story doesn’t s-stop here.” He slid both hands into his hair.

“Fitz, how…”

“W-whatever it takes…” His jaw clenched, and he went to his desk, grabbing a piece of paper. He wrote furiously for several minutes while her tears slowly dried. The radio was playing Aerosmith. At last, his pen stopped moving, and Fitz laid the paper on the bed beside her with a flourish.

_Jemma-_

_Sorry, this is easier to do in writing than stumbling through saying it. I love you. I will do everything in my power to bring you back into physical existence. After this mission, I will sit down with Coulson and tell him about what is going on. If SHIELD doesn't help, we’ll leave and find another way. I’ll rob banks if I have to. I will never give up on you, and I want you to promise you won’t give up on me. 1408_ _°C, remember? This situation might be stressful, but it doesn’t have anywhere near enough energy to break us apart._

_-Fitz_

He’d dressed while she was reading and was now fidgeting in the middle of his room.

“I love you, too,” she said. “And I promise. I won’t disappear.”

“T-thank you.”

“Now we better get some food in you, or you’ll be starving on the mission.”

He nodded, then frowned. “B-breakfast nook?”

“I might have some ideas about how I want our future to go.” She smiled shyly.

He grinned. “I-I like the s-so-soun…I like that.”


	7. Superstition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Very gentle reminder that I'm massaging the events of the first two episodes of S2 for narrative purposes. (i.e The New Kid is nervous)

When you believe in things you don't understand

               -Stevie Wonder, Superstition

****

The backseat of the SUV was crammed with equipment, but on one side Fitz had made sure a spot had been left clear for Simmons. He’d heard a couple of the low-level agents that’d been double checking things say something about Fitz and his ‘imaginary friend’, which had nearly resulted in Fitz socking one of them.

Mack had caught Fitz’s shoulder and shook his head, which was the only reason Fitz was still on the mission and not sidelined for trying to knock the wanker’s teeth out. Not that Fitz had the means to irrefutably prove Jemma wasn’t “imaginary” at the moment, but there had to be a way. Something he was missing.

He didn’t think Jemma had heard the lout, but she was abnormally quiet anyway, her face turned away from him and hidden by her hair, which she’d left down that morning.

If only he could pull her onto his lap and wrap his arms around her. He was sure he could make whatever bothering her better. He dug his fingertips into his leg to keep himself from reaching for her.

“Jemma,” he said softly, with a glance towards the front of the SUV where Coulson was driving and talking to May. It was logistics he probably should be listening to, but how was he supposed to do that when Simmons was obviously so upset?

She didn’t turn her head, and her voice was tight. “Yes?”

Fitz squirmed. It sounded like he’d done something wrong. He hadn’t…had he?

“Er, are you m-m-mad at me?” There wasn’t a lot of time to beat around the bush.

Her head whipped around. “No, Fitz, no I’m…it’s not you, exactly.”

“Then what is it, exactly?”

She didn’t say anything at first, just swept her eyes up and down him. “Look at you. All dressed in black with a gun on your hip.”

“It’s just a night-night gun.”

“You look good,” she said, before turning away to peer out the window again.

He was chuffed for three seconds until he put two and two together and felt like an idiot.

“Are you upset about me going on the mission?”

She sighed, and her shoulders sagged.

“Look at me, p-p-please.”

Jemma turned to face him again. Her hands were tightly gripping each other in her lap. “Yes, I’m not thrilled. Which isn’t fair. Coulson thinks you’re ready. You’re excited. The team needs everyone on this. And I’m just being a ninny.”

“About what?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.” Her eyes went to her hands. “But I can’t keep you swaddled in bubble wrap. You have to live your life, and you’re a SHIELD agent…and I spent an hour trying to be substantial enough last night to break your door lock and keep you from going anywhere.”

“Oh.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Sta-sta…by the numbers I’m more at r-risk in the shower—”

“Don’t you dare try to throw statistics at me right now. Statistics aren’t going to shoot bullets at you. And I can’t do a thing if you’re hurt. I have to come along on this ride because I can’t be that far from you, but I’m helpless.”

“It’s a w-warehouse. I’ll be fine.”

She fixed him with a glare. “You better be.”

“You doing okay back there?” Coulson asked. He’d insisted on being part of the mission, but May was forcing him to stay with the car. There were somethings the Director just wasn’t supposed to do, and this was one of them.

“Great,” Fitz mumbled.

Except that Jemma was mad at him for doing his job. He wanted to tell her it was her fault he was in the field in the first place, but that wasn’t right. He’d followed along willingly enough. Not that he wouldn’t have followed her anywhere. And she was the one who’d paid, and the price had been bloody steep.

He rubbed a hand over his face. He should have told Coulson no. Said he wasn’t ready. Then he could have spent the day working on a way to get Jemma back to the land of the living. Instead, he was…what was he doing? Showing off?

Damn it. He’d had some thoughts along those lines, that Jemma would look at him and see someone more badass than he usually was. Someone competent. Not someone who couldn’t get the right words out or had to press his palm against his leg to keep his hand from trembling because it still wasn’t working right.

He wanted to be someone she would believe would save her.

“Sorry,” he said to Jemma. “I-I-should have s…sta…not come.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I know you’ll do wonderfully. Maybe I’m jealous. And yes, I’m a bit scared. I think I’m always going to be stuck in that moment when I was floating in the ocean and I couldn’t wake you up. I’m terrified I’ll suddenly find that this is all a dream and I’m still there.” She wiped at her face.

“I-I-I’m here,” he said. “I’d v-very much like to k-kiss you, right now.”

She smiled. “That’d be nice.” Jemma swiped at her eyes again and then bit her lip. “It might a bit scratchier than I imagined.”

He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin and cheeks. “N-not scratchy.” He frowned. “I-I’ll sha-sha…get rid of it.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“You just—”

“I was teasing, Fitz, about the scratchiness.” She blushed. “It looks nice.”

It was his turn to flush. “I l-like your eyebrows,” he blurted. Oh, brilliant, Leo. What girl wants to hear about that? “And the res-rest of you.”

She smiled shyly.

The SUV turned off the main road, and Coulson inched it down an alley before halting and turning off the engine. “We’re here,” he announced.

Jemma was back to acting worried. Fitz believed the whole thing would probably be more boring than anything else. They were looking for a single box amid a bunch of them. Dust allergies were probably the biggest threat.

There was a flurry of communication between May and the other teams while Fitz overrode the door locks and security system. For what the warehouse was storing, the quality of the programming was atrocious. It took him less than a minute to break through, set up a loop on the video and turn the motion sensors and alarms off.

Inside, the place was nothing but aisle after aisle of shelves, all of them packed with boxes.

Terrific.

Everyone split up and began scanning with the detectors he’d made. As Fitz played the one in his hand over the array of boxes he mentally kicked himself. The beam was too narrow. If he’d made it so it was wider and then could be focused, the instrument would be a lot more useful.

He slowly walked down the aisle he’d ended up in, Jemma beside him.

“Do you think the Ark of the Covenant is in here somewhere?” she asked.

Fitz snorted. “P-probably.”

There were a couple of minutes of silence. He hummed a Stevie Wonder song under his breath.

“C-could you ch-che…see if there’s anything h-hidden, between rows?” he asked, the sheer number of crates they were looking through was daunting. Maybe there was a special place for the most classified objects?

Jemma lit up. “Of course. Secret hiding spots for sensitive things.” She paused. “Fitz, that means walking through stuff, which is not your favorite.”

“D-different here.” They were on a mission. He didn’t get to be squeamish when something this important was on the line.

****

Jemma waited until Fitz was turned away and busily scanning a row of crates before walking straight at the shelves. As expected, she was able to go right through. The sensation wasn’t great, but she ignored it as she searched for any hidden areas.

She darted from aisle to aisle but found nothing. It was like who’d ever dumped this stuff here had zero idea what they were dealing with.

Which was probably the case.

She worked her way back to Fitz, popping out a dozen yards in front of him.

“Nothing at all,” she reported.

“Th-there’s no org-organization scheme.”

“I know. It’s making my teeth itch.”

Fitz chuckled.

She wandered father down the aisle, checking the numbers on the crates with no luck. The hairs on the back of her neck abruptly stood on end, and she absently rubbed at them, before stopping dead in her tracks.

“Fitz!” she called. “Fitz! Fitz!”

“Did you find it?”  he said, jogging to where she was.

“No, but…I can feel something. There’s something here that’s affecting me.”

His eyebrows shot up. “W-where?”

Jemma spun in a circle so she could identify where the prickly feeling crawling up and down her spine was strongest and quickly walked in that direction. She had to pause a few times to reorient, but finally, she led Fitz to a bank of shelves no different from all the others. It was a bit silly to wave her hand over the boxes sitting here, but it let her single out the one that was the source of the first outside sensation she’d had in months.

With a trembling finger, she pointed at a slim case. It was small and rectangular with a hinge like a jewelry box.

Fitz picked it up and flipped open the lid.

They leaned over the object. It was a small, oval stone that was milky white.

“I have no clue what it is,” she said after a moment.

“A st-sto…rock,” Fitz muttered. He snapped the lid closed on the case and hastily looked around before sliding it into the cargo pocket of his pants.

“Fitz!” she hissed. “You can’t just steal something.”

He looked heavenward. “We are here pro-pro-professionally stealing.”

“That’s an authorized mission.”

He gave her a look.

“Oh, fine. It has to mean something if I can sense it, right?”

Fitz snorted in a way that clearly indicated she was being dense.

“Found it!” a woman’s voice called—Izzy—and then a lot happened at once.

There was a rapid flurry of shots. Someone yelled about Creel being there. Something broke. More yelling.

Fitz ran for the door, and Jemma followed on his heels. Coulson was standing there, gun drawn, but bullets cracked into the wall next to him, and he had to retreat back outside.

“Get down!” Jemma yelled, and Fitz threw himself behind a large wooden crate as another shot whizzed over his head.

She scanned the area.

“Jemma!” Fitz yelled.

“I’m fine. They can’t see me, and the bullets can’t hurt me. Hang on. I’m going to figure out the location of these guys.”

She ran, going through objects without thinking about it. She made a circuit and returned to Fitz’s hiding spot. “Hydra personnel. Two on the left, two on the right, one positioned at the end of the aisle,” she said as she ducked to crouch beside Fitz. “The two on the left are close. I can show you where there’s a gap in the crates and you can incapacitate.”

“Okay,” he said, face pale. He drew his gun and crawled to where Jemma pointed. He looked at her, set his jaw, and steadied his hand as he aimed. Two quick shots and he scrambled back to his cover as the Hydra agent at the end of the aisle sent another bullet into the wood.

Jemma went through the shelves to check and found two men laid out on the ground. “Good shooting, Fitz. They’re both down.” She was impressed.

“Th-th-that’s excellent.”

“I’m going to check on Coulson. Stay put.”

Fitz nodded.

She trotted down the aisle, making a face at the berk who was keeping Fitz pinned and wishing she could do anything to him. Scaring him would feel good.

Outside, Coulson was eyeing the door. He didn’t have a shot at the guy inside from where he was, but he looked like he was two seconds away from darting in and playing Dirty Harry anyway. She hastened around the side of the building to see if there was a window or hole in the siding that would be safer for him, only to pass right through another Hydra agent creeping up on Coulson.

Damn it. Hurtling through the wall, Jemma hollered for Fitz: “Tell Coulson he’s about to have a bullet in his back. His nine o’clock.”

“Coulson!” Fitz shouted. “On your nine.”

“The guy at the end of the aisle will try to hit Coulson as well, and don’t forget the two on the right.”

Fitz’s knuckles were tight on his gun. “Got it,” he said. His eyes closed for a second. “I love you, Jemma.”

She sucked in a breath.

“W-waited too long be..befo…not going to stop saying it n-now.”

“I love you too.” Jemma went through the shelves to the right so she would have eyes on the Hydra agents there. She did not think about how scared Fitz must be if he was whispering that he loved her while clutching a gun.

A shot was fired outside, and the guy at the end of the aisle made a break for the door and Coulson, but Coulson had already pivoted. He took the guy down easily.

The two Hydra agents on the right were slinking towards Coulson. “Fitz,” she yelled. “Both on the move.”

“Your right!” Fitz hollered at Coulson. Jemma ran back through the shelves in time to see Fitz pull the trigger and take down the leading Hydra agent. A shocked Coulson managed to turn and fire on the second one just as the man raised his weapon. The Hydra agent’s bullet slammed into the door jamb, splintering the wood, but he was already dropping to the floor with the blue of the dendrotoxin spreading over his skin.

Fitz was panting hard.

Jemma quickly did another sweep. “I think we’re clear.”

“Thanks,” Coulson said roughly as Fitz stumbled to the door.

“No problem.”

Coulson was eyeing him. “They guy outside, how did you know?”

Fitz sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Jemma grinned. She’d been useful, and she’d gotten to see Fitz being the agent she knew he was. The bonus was the unknown object that was still thrumming away in Fitz’s pocket.

May returned, a frown on her face. “We need to get going. Creel’s after Izzy and her team.”

“We’ll regroup at the base,” Coulson said with a nod.

****

Coulson pushed the SUV to its limit, worried about the artifact, Creel, and a whole host of other issues. May was silent in her seat. Despite himself, Coulson reached up and angled the review mirror so he could see Fitz.

The kid had somehow known about a gunman he couldn’t possibly have seen.

At the moment, Fitz, who was sitting in the center of the back seat again, had his entire body angled toward the window. His chin was resting on his hand, and his elbow was propped on the back of the seat.

On the ride to the warehouse Coulson had just ignored Fitz’s whispered conversation with himself, but now Coulson strained to hear what Fitz was saying.

“I didn’t really do much,” Fitz said, voice soft. Then he smiled. “You’re be..be…being too nice.” His expression became flustered. “You w-w-were ama…amaz…wonderful too.”

Coulson returned his eyes to the road. He could easily imagine Simmons sitting in the empty seat, grinning and batting her eyelashes at Fitz.

It was probably a good thing she wasn’t, or neither of them would have any clothes on by the time they reached the base.

Coulson shook his head. Fitz had known where the shooters had been. Like someone had fed him the intel. Glancing in the mirror again, Coulson had to suppress a chuckle as a slightly flushed Fitz leaned forward, his face a little dopey as he whispered something unintelligible to thin air.

It was awkward nerd flirting for sure.

“Hey, Fitz,” Coulson said loudly.

“Er, yes,” Fitz replied, jerking upright.

“When we get back, take the rest of the day off. You can debrief later.”

“Th-th-thanks.”

“No problem.”

May shot Coulson a look, but he shrugged.

Fitz and his…whatever Simmons was—hallucination?—had earned a little downtime.

Back at the base, Fitz immediately jumped out of the SUV and disappeared.

It wasn’t a minute later that someone was at Coulson’s side, telling him about Izzy and the wreck.

 


	8. Boogie Nights

Make it move, set this place on fire

               -Heatwave, Boogie Nights

****

It wasn’t even Disco Saturday, but the song on the iPod was _Boogie Nights_.

It wasn’t helping his mood.

Fitz was sitting on the edge of his bed. There was still adrenaline in his system, and it was making his fingers twitch.

Jemma was babbling and walking in circles. “I can’t believe you pulled that off! You were amazing!”

He hated that she still looked neat and tidy. He wanted to sink his fingers into her hair and pull it loose. Or…so many things. They had to solve this. He had to touch her. Fitz put his head in his hands and groaned. His cock was in complete agreement on the touching part. It was eagerly getting itself ready for the beautiful woman in his room who he loved more than anything.

The one he couldn’t bloody do anything with.

He growled softly, completely frustrated.

“Fitz?” Jemma asked. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. It came out harsher than he meant it to, but he wasn’t okay. He was nearly beside himself with wanting Jemma. His adrenaline high was shifting gears and turning into pure lust.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Her voice was shrill and her face fearful as she abandoned her pacing and came to kneel in front of him.

He could too easily see her being on her knees for a variety of other reasons, and he was surprised at just how pornographic his thoughts were.

“Fitz?  What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.” He tried to look away from her, but just the sight of her concerned face was intoxicating.

“You can tell me.”

“F-fine. I…I want…Jemma.” He growled again, frustrated at the way words kept failing him. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I..I want to t-toss you down on this b-bed and fuck you.”

Jemma looked shocked for a second, and he immediately regretted swearing. It’d just been easier to say. But then the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and her pupils dilated.

“Oh,” she whispered, and something changed in her posture. She was suddenly softer, more open. Her gaze swept over his face and down his chest to his crotch. She audibly sucked in a breath. “Next best thing?” Her voice was low and husky. It did something delicious to his insides.

“Please,” he said. Jemma’s hands went to the hem of her jumper. “This time…c-c-an you…everything?”

She smiled and nodded. “You too.”

As she pulled off her shirt, he did his best to comply as fast as possible, even though his left hand was being clumsy. By the time he kicked his pants away, she was naked as well, standing in the middle of the room and biting her lip, her fingers fluttering against her thighs.

“B-Beautiful,” he gasped. Every inch of her was perfect. Her breasts, the curve of her hip, the soft curls covering her mound.

“Thank you,” she said as her gaze swept down his body. He had to fight the urge to cover himself. His erection was pointing more or less in her direction, and he supposed there really was no use trying to hide what she did to him. “I wish I could touch you,” Jemma whispered.

“M-more than any-anything. I want to-to feel you.”

“Sorry, it’s only looking right now. But, Fitz, we’ll find a way. We always do.”

“I b-b-believe you.” He did. And as soon as he could hold on to her, he’d never let go again. Metaphorically speaking. She’d get mad at him if he tried to literally do it while she was working.

She took a step closer, then another, brushing by him close enough to make the hair on his arms stand on end. Laying down on her back, she wiggled to the middle of the bed. He kneeled on the end of the mattress, staring at her.

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” she said. “Which is silly. Because you’re Fitz…but I want you to like all of me, and what if you don’t?”

Not like all of her? “Impossible,” he breathed.

Her knees remained closed.

“Open, p-please. Let me see.”

He wasn’t sure how he had enough blood in his brain left to speak at all, let alone not stumble over most of his words.

Her gaze met his, and then she slowly spread her legs, leaving her knees bent and her feet flat on the bed.

Oh.

Oh!

“Jemma.”

He crawled as close as he could on his hands and knees, unable to tear his eyes away from her pussy. It was a work of art. The plump outer lips framed dusky pink inner ones while her clit was poking out at the top, begging to be played with. The opening to her body was deceptively demure, though honey slicked her skin around it and told him he’d be welcome inside her.

“T-touch yourself,” he whispered. “I know you can’t or-org…”

“I can’t sneeze, either.”

He glanced up at her face, discovering that she was watching him intently.

“It’s a similar biological process,” Jemma said with a tiny shrug. “Don’t worry. You’ll get to make it up to me.”

He nodded vigorously. He’d make her come over and over until she was boneless. “I’ll t-take care of you.”

“I know you will. This is good for now. But tell me, what would you do right now if you could?” Her hands went to her breasts, rolling and squeezing the nipples.

He swallowed hard. “Ah…” He coughed, and his eyes went back to her pussy. “I-I I’d lick you. The first ch-chance…I get…I want to taste you.”

Jemma moaned. One of her hands left her breast and trailed down her belly until she could reach her clit. The tip of her finger started circling it and she settled into what he assumed was a familiar rhythm.

It was beyond hot, seeing her pleasure herself. Fitz’s cock twitched, wanting in on the action. Part of his mind, one that he never could quite turn off, was cataloging everything that he was seeing. The exact angle of her fingers, the speed, amount of pressure she was applying. He was fairly certain that he could apply the equation for—

His cock twitched again as Jemma mewled and her hips bucked off the bed. Still on all fours, he fisted himself and groaned.

“Wait,” she said.

Wait? How the hell was he supposed to do that?

“I want to see you. Please.”

Oh.

For a second he hesitated, feeling inadequate. Jemma was so gorgeous, and he wasn’t one of the agents around here that could kill a herd—er, that wasn’t the right word, pack?—of ninjas barehanded.

But…

She’d said she liked how he looked. That’d been real. And she’d said he was kind of pasty. Which was also real.

Slowly, he sat back on his heels and stroked himself.

Jemma wiggled and, to his complete amazement, she got wetter.

Nothing in his life had prepared for being able to see that the girl he loved wanted him.

“Jemma,” he moaned, thrusting into his fist.

****

There was no sound like Fitz saying her name with his voice sex-roughened.

He’d transformed again, going from her friend and lab partner to bacchanal god. His hair was in disarray, his face and chest were flushed, and his eyes were dark with desire.

How could every woman not be all over him?

It really was perplexing.

Especially because she only ever had to explain a theory or idea to him once and he not only got it but remembered it later and could expand on it or use it in a practical application.

He was perfect.

Jemma groaned, and she plunged two of her fingers inside herself, desperate to feel full.

Fitz's mouth fell open as his eyes widened, but then he winced and let his dick go.

“Everything okay?” she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows.

He waved a hand. “Ch-chaf…need lotion.”

“Oh, yeah…not a problem I have.”

“No, y-you most certainly don’t.” He gave her a slightly goofy smile, and she blushed. She was very aroused.

She scooted out of the way as he shuffled up the bed on his knees and bent to get the bottle from the bottom of his nightstand. She wished she could smell it, could put her nose on his skin and smell his scent mixed with the almonds and cherry of the lotion.

He groaned softly as he wrapped his hand around his cock again.

“Fitz,” she asked, idly stroking her clit in rhythm with his tugs on his shaft, “how would you want me? Right now, if you could put your cock inside me?”

“First time, Jemma, face-to-to…”

“Oh, of course. But pretend it’s not our first time. What then?”

His eyes slid away from hers.

“None of that, Leopold. No being shy right now. Not when we’re like this.”

“Okay, okay.”

“So?”

“From behind. Hard.”

Well, he hadn’t even stumbled over that one. And now her mind was supplying all kinds of images that fit that description. From her being on her hands and knees on the bed to Fitz pressing her against the wall in the lab, her skirt—in her imagination she had an absurdly short one on that was not appropriate for lab work—hiked up around her waist.

Though that was completely impractical. They’d be contaminating…

Oh, phooey, it was her fantasy.

Fitz had worked his way back down towards the foot of her bed, giving her some room. She rolled onto her stomach and was rewarded by a hitch in Fitz’s breathing. Biting her lip, she pushed her ass up into the air. This was something she most certainly hadn’t done before, trying to be a porn star for someone. Glancing over her shoulder, she figured she was being successful, judging from the enraptured look on Fitz’s face.

She couldn’t see his cock from the angle she was at, just his arm moving and the flex and pull of his muscles as he wanked. Jemma pressed harder on her clit, wishing for some kind of relief. She closed her eyes and pushed her cheek against the bed while lifting her rear higher.

Fitz made an appreciative noise.

It was very easy to make him happy.

She slid her fingers inside herself again, rolling her hips and pressing on the spot that always worked to get her off. Only not this time.

It still felt good, though, and she moaned and wiggled, enjoying the pressure from her fingers and how nice it was to be wanted. Fitz started to breathe raggedly, and she could hear his hand speeding up.

She arched her back, mewling as she twisted her fingers inside her.

Fitz grunted and…oh, she could feel his come as it passed through her to land on the sheet. That was ooky.

She pulled her fingers out and rolled to the side to sit up.

Fitz looked mortified. “Sorry…I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry,” she said smiling, appreciating how wrung out he looked.

“If you g-get up, I’ll change the…the…”

She stood and dressed, and after he did the same, he stripped the bed and remade it with linen out of a drawer, his cheeks flushed the entire time.

Turning off the lights, he lay down on his side, and she curled up, facing him, her sweater in its usual place under her head.

“Sorry,” he said again.

“Really, it’s alright.”

“No, not…I shouldn’t be…when you can’t.”

Jemma frowned. “Excuse me. It’s my body. Or as much as one as I have at the moment, and I can bloody well do what I want with it.”

Fitz opened his mouth, then promptly closed it again.

“Exactly. I get to choose. And this is what I want. It’s the kind of relationship I want to have with you.”

“Okay, Jemma, okay. You win. Can we go to-to sleep?” He yawned.

She nodded, curling up tighter as Fitz’s eyes closed.

If only she had anything at all to give, she’d give it away for even a few moments of having an actual physical form again. Snuggling would be nice right about now.

With a sigh, she shut her eyes and started running through the classification of _Ovis_ species, hoping rest would find her soon as well.

****

Fitz woke up with his stomach rumbling. He glanced at his alarm clock.

Blast. It was only two in the morning.

Jemma was in a tight ball beside him, her face relaxed, but when he sat up, her eyes snapped open.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He made a face. “Midnight snack.”

She lit up. “I think there was a delivery to the kitchen today. Why don’t we go down and I can tell you how to make your favorite?”

“That s-sounds amazing.” He found a pair of trousers and pulled a cardigan on while Jemma waited by the door, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

The hallway was mostly deserted, and they were able to walk side-by-side to the kitchen. 

Jemma knew where everything was kept and had him pulling out the right bread, fresh mozzarella, and prosciutto in no time.

Making the aioli was more problematic.

“If one clove—” he said, holding up a head of garlic.

Jemma sighed, loudly. “Are you going to argue or make it how I tell you? Which is how I know you like it?”

He put his hands on his hips. “It’s just, what’s w-wrong with a little…”

“Experimentation? Not when it’s my recipe.”

“Hello?” a voice said from the kitchen door, and Fitz glanced over at the same time as Jemma.

Trip was standing there, his expression perplexed.

“Hi, Trip,” Fitz said, returning to the aioli and only adding the specific amount of garlic he’d been told to. Now probably wasn’t the time to make Jemma too angry. Not when she was helping him with food.

“You down here alone?” Trip asked.

“Mostly. G-got hungry.”

Trip opened one of the fridges. “Yeah, me too. Though I prefer pistachio ice cream to…whatever it is you’re making.”

“P-prosciutto and..and..”

Trip looked at the counter. “And mozzarella?”

Fitz nodded.

“With just a hint of pesto aioli,” Jemma added.

“To each their own.” Trip leaned against the counter with his pint of ice cream. “So how’re you doing? Close call today, though I hear you held your own.”

Fitz shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Now brush it on, not too much—” Jemma was concentrating on his hands as he worked.

“You sure?” Trip asked.

“Yes,” Fitz said, annoyed. He was trying to make a sandwich. “Cheese or meat first?” he asked Jemma.

“Meat, make sure and spread it out evenly.” She bit her lip as he tried to do what she said.

“I’m not sure.” Trip stuck a huge bite of ice cream in his mouth.

Jemma huffed. “Now the cheese—No! Not like that…better.”

“Why?” Fitz said.

Trip swallowed and pointed the spoon at him. “Because you’re in the kitchen at two am talking to yourself.”

“Now the top.” Jemma was studiously ignoring Trip, which meant she was upset. A few minutes ago it’d almost been possible to pretend things were normal. Now he was the crazy guy with an invisible friend again. Brilliant.

Fitz picked up his completed sandwich and took a bite. It was good. “D-doesn’t mean I’m not fine,” he said around the mouthful. Good, but not exactly right. “I think it’s missing s-someth-thing…” He chewed slowly, trying to figure it out.

“So help me, Fitz, if you say the missing ingredient is love I’m going to put my hand through your head.”

He frowned. “I was…the layering isn’t quite…quite right.” She did it much better. He glanced at Trip. “She threatened to-to put her fist…through my head.”

“You probably deserve it for something,” he replied.

Jemma nodded. “You tell him.”

“H-hey, whose side are you on?”

Trip grinned. “You keep him in line, Jemma.”

Fitz rolled his eyes and took another bite.

“Can we go back to our room?” Jemma asked. “Though it is lovely to have someone at least pretend I’m here. Do tell Trip hello for me.”

Fitz dumped his dirty dishes in the sink and gathered up the two halves of the sandwich. “Jemma says hi,” he said before taking another bite.

“Er, hi to you too, Simmons.” Trip shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable until Fitz gestured to where Jemma was standing, then he smiled and nodded at her.

Jemma grinned and waved as she moved towards the exit.

Fitz, taking another bite—it really wasn’t exactly the same—did the same as he walked out the door.

Jemma sighed once they were headed down the corridor. “It’s getting old, this being a ghost thing.”

“T-tell me about it.”

****

Trip sucked in a breath. “How’s Fitz doing?” he repeated Coulson’s question back to him. Coulson looked exhausted. He’d been spearheading the attempts to track down the missing artifact and the Hydra agent that’d taken it and killed Izzy.

Trip didn’t think the guy had slept since the day before, and it looked like his morning coffee wasn’t doing much for him.

“You had a snack with Fitz last night, didn’t you?” Coulson said.

“Man—” Trip rubbed at his eye. “That whole thing was weird. He was talking to himself, or to Simmons, I guess. It’s like she was there and giving him directions on how to put a sandwich together. He even passed on a hello to me.”

“So, I take it you think he’s hallucinating?”

“Truthfully? I don’t really know. We’ve all be walking on eggshells around the guy, thinking her death broke him. But…it was uncanny. I mean, dude was arguing with her. If he was making her up, why would she be pissy with him?”

Coulson rubbed at his forehead. “I think, after this stuff with Creel is settled, we might need to take a closer look at things.”

“I’m with you. If it is Simmons, maybe she just needs to connect back up with her body. It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Coulson stood, crossing his arms. “We still have it. I’m going to have to stop stalling with her parents soon and saying she’s working undercover. We’ve been waiting for Fitz to come around…but—” Coulson shook his head. “She drowned. Her lungs are toast. And she’s just frozen, not in cryogenic storage.”

Trip made a face.

“Yeah, I don’t like thinking about it either.”

“What do we do?”

Coulson gave a half-smile. “We find Creel. Then we figure out if Fitz is haunted by more than just guilt. And if he is, then it’s simple, really. We bring her back.”

Trip snorted. “Is that all?”

Coulson raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”


	9. The Boys Are Back In Town

When I say she was cool, she was red hot

               -Thin Lizzy, “The Boys are Back In Town”

****

There were two problems Fitz was trying to solve, and he wasn’t making a lot of headway on either one.

Three, if you counted the problem foremost in his mind: getting Jemma back to this plane of existence.

The other two were important as well. The first was designing a weapon that would stop Creel in his tracks, which was what he was officially doing. The other was analyzing the object he’d pocketed in the warehouse.

Currently, he was leafing through the compiled information they had on Creel. Part of it was from the work Jemma had done, part from reports of agents that’d encountered him in the field, and some was from the initial blood work done by other lab personnel. Something was niggling in the back of Fitz’s brain, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Among the gathered lab instruments and computers on the table in front of him was a laptop dedicated to analyzing the stone.

Jemma was standing in front of it and impatiently shifting her weight.

“Oh, finally,” she breathed as results from composition tests began filling the screen. Then she frowned.

“W-what?”

“It’s just…quartz. SiO2. Wait…yes…no…”

He made an exasperated noise and dropped the papers on the table before going to stand beside her.

The numbers were clear. Boring old quartz.

“Wait, go back,” Jemma said, making an abortive movement with her hand towards the laptop’s keyboard.

Fitz paused the data flow and rewound until Jemma told him to stop.

“There,” she said pointing at the screen. It took only a second for him to see what she was pointing at. The stone wasn’t just quartz.

“H-hang on.” He transferred the data over to a thumb drive and sat in a chair to plug the drive into one of the lab’s more powerful computers.

Jemma hovered beside him as he pulled up a crystallography program and fed it the data. The computer chugged on the size of the file before spitting out the result.

Not just quartz at all. There was something else in the crystal structure. Something unknown.

Fitz zoomed in.

“There’s a…pattern,” Jemma said.

He continued to scroll through the graphical representation of the crystal’s structure. “Not exactly, more a c-co…” he trailed off and fluttered his fingers as he searched for the word. “A co-co-code.”

 “Like a computer code?”

He nodded and glanced up just in time to see Coulson walking down the hallway. Fitz turned off the computer monitor and hastened to his feet, grabbing the printout on Creel.

“How’s it coming?” Coulson asked as he stepped into the lab.

Fitz sighed. “It’s not.”

“But it will.” Coulson patted his shoulder. “After Creel’s been dealt with, come to my office. We have something we need to talk about.”

Fitz turned so he could see Coulson’s face, but it gave nothing away. Fitz rubbed at his temple. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” Coulson said. “You’ll get it.” His eyes darted around the room.

“Maybe.”

“Can I see?” Jemma asked, trying to look over Fitz’s shoulder at the papers in his hand.  

She was adorable standing on tiptoes, but he knew she’d need better access. Walking to an empty table, he began tearing apart the stapled papers and laying them out for her. Jemma’s attention immediately snapped to the papers. She leaned over and brushed her hair behind her ear.

“I’ll just leave you to it, then?” Coulson asked.

Fitz grunted. Something was pushing at the back of his mind again.

Coulson thankfully walked out, and Fitz claimed a stool beside the table as Jemma absorbed the extra information they now had on Creel.

“Oh, Fitz. You put my name on the report you submitted to Coulson. That was very sweet of you.”

“You wrote it.”

“Well, yes, but I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had left me off.”

“Yes…you w-w-would have.”

She glanced up at him and smiled before returned to studying the printout. His heart twisted. He wanted to take Jemma in his arms. Kiss her. Hold her. It was torture to look at her and not be able to touch.

And the way she was bending over the lab table—

Fitz put a hand over his eyes. Not that he could block out the mental images of her from the night before, her rear in the air and the lips of her pussy coated in slickness. His cock twitched in appreciation.

“Fitz!” Jemma’s voice was excited, and he dropped his hand in alarm. She couldn’t actually read his mind, could she?

She was still looking at the papers. “Fitz…I think I remember you designing something that’d work on his cell structure.”

“What?” He went to stand beside her.

“I should have thought of it while I was dictating to you, but I swear you’ve worked on this problem before.”

Fitz frowned. “I didn’t solve this today?”

“No, I think not. Get your tablet.”

He flipped through designs until…there. That one. “It’s just a de-desi…it’s not complete.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

****

The weapon was progressing slower than Jemma would have liked. Fitz was still having enough trouble with his left hand that the prototype mock-up had been difficult for him to complete. Plus, they’d argued quite a bit about materials.

She was still sure she was right, but Fitz had become agitated, and his aphasia had worsened. Eventually, she’d retreated to looking at the computer readouts on the stone from the warehouse while he’d fussed with the design and prototype.

That’d been several hours ago.

She was perched on a stool, staring at the computer, when Fitz gave a disgusted growl and slammed his fist into the wall.

“Still not working?” she asked.

“N-nothing’s working. I n-n-need you Jemma.”

“I can help.”

“N-not—” He broke off and pressed a hand to his temple. “I n-need you here. I do my part, and you do yours.”

Jemma’s face fell. “I can’t—”

“I know!” he roared. “God, I know,” he said again, quieter.

She hopped down and went to see what he was working on, then sighed. The prototype of the weapon to stop Creel had been pushed to the side. In its place were several different instruments hooked up to a laptop and pointed at where she’d been sitting. The readouts all showed nothing.

“Fitz,” she sighed.

“I need you.”

“I’m right here.”

“I know.” He turned away from her, and something broke in her chest. She wasn’t enough.

“Fitz, I’m sorry. I want to be here and real with you. I’m sorry that this…is all I am.”

He turned back around. “No…no.” He put his hands on his hips, and his head sagged forward. “N-not you, it’s me. I c-can’t figure this out. I’m f-f-failing you.”

“Look at me,” she snapped. He did eyes wet with unshed tears. “You will never fail me. We will solve this.” She glanced at the computer again. “Dark matter? You wanted to see if I’m dark matter?”

Fitz shrugged.

“That’s impossible.”

He made a face. “It could be c-c-contained. Somehow.”

“And that’s why I can’t physically touch anything? Because I and it would wink out of existence?”

“Don’t say that.” His voice was rough.

“Sorry, but this can wait. We have to solve the Creel problem first.”

Fitz huffed. “I c-can’t even think right now.”

He did look completely out of sorts.

“What if we took a break?”

“A break?” He scratched at the scruff on his cheek as the tip of his ears turned pink.

She did her best to look sultry. “You, me, our room?”

His eyebrows went up. “Now?”

“Now.”

“Right.”

He closed the laptop, grabbed the radio which had been sitting silently on a desk, and headed for the exit.

Jemma put a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. She’d thought that was going to take a lot more convincing. But he was forgetting something. “Wait, the stone.” They couldn’t leave it just sitting out.

Fitz doubled back, grabbed the case with the rock and snapped it shut.

In the hallway he glanced over his shoulder at Jemma, smiling with his eyelids at half-mast.

Her toes curled.

Fitz looked around just as he collided with Mack.

“Where you headed, Turbo?”

“Nowhere.”

“Sure. How’s the thing you’re working on going?”

Fitz frowned. “Slow. I…uh…need a s-snack.”

“I could use one myself, are you going to the mess?”

Jemma giggled as Fitz opened and closed his mouth.

“Pretzels in your room,” she suggested.

Fitz looked relieved. “I’ve got p-pretzels…in my room.”

Mack looked skeptical. “Okay. I’m on the way to see Coulson anyway. Do you want me to tell him anything about your project?”

“That I’ll be back at it s-soon.”

“Will do.”

Fitz ducked around Mack and hurried the rest of the way, luckily without further interruption.

In their room, Fitz set up the radio and hit shuffle on the playlist—Thin Lizzy started playing—and set the case for the stone down beside his iPod. He flipped the top open.

“Do you think it’s alien?” Jemma asked, pulling off her jumper and kicking off her trainers.

Fitz shrugged out of his cardigan. “P-probably. Don’t care right now.”

“Wait, slow down,” she said as he started to unbutton his shit.

“Yeah?” his hands fell to his side. Obviously, slow was not in what he’d been going for. His cock was already straining against the front of his trousers.

She licked her lips.

“Touch yourself through your clothes.”

Fitz didn’t need to be told twice. He pressed his palm to his hardon and groaned.

Her lower belly filled with heat.

She walked to the bed, and he turned to follow her movements as she passed him. It’d be nice to be able to smell him. Press her lips against his neck and breath him in. Or to rub her nose in his pubic hair and get the muskier scent of him on her face.

Standing in front of the bed, she slid her trousers and knickers down and off. Fitz’s eyes followed her movements.

“Let me s-s-see you,” he breathed, rubbing harder at his erection.

“You can see me.”

He growled softly. “Your p-puss…your cunt.” The word amused her. Trust a guy to still be able to say that one.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Yes, Jemma.”

She sat on the bed and scooted back, spreading her legs. “What do you like about it?”

Fitz’s head tilted, and his hips thrust forward. “Huh?”

“What do you like about my cunt?” She felt odd saying it. She wasn’t one to talk dirty, but when you couldn’t touch your sex partner, you had to try other things. With her fingers, she spread the lips of her pussy wide.

Fitz groaned. “The…angle your inner l-l-labia meet at your clit is—”

“Leopold! Math? Now?”

He looked confused. “Er…it’s pretty?”

“Better.”

His cheeks flushed. “And…and…I really wish I c-could put my dick in you.”

Her entire body pulsed with desire. “I really wish that you could too.” Jemma slid her hand down and pressed two fingers inside herself. She moaned, and her hips lifted up.

“T-take your top off,” Fitz said. “Please.”

She pulled her fingers from her body and quickly undid the buttons of her blouse and tossed it away. Her bra followed.

Fitz visibly swallowed, and his eyes darted between her breasts and her pussy as if he couldn’t decide where he wanted to look more. A shudder passed through him, and he cupped his balls through the material of his trousers.

“W-what…if…you could…?” he asked, his words starting to get lost.

“I’d pull you down on top of me. I want to feel you, all of you. I want your weight pressing me against the bed. I want to be overwhelmed by you until there’s nothing in my world but you.”

“Jemma!” He was breathing hard. “L-l-let me…” He gestured at the front of his trousers.

“Let me see you,” she said, her hands kneading her breasts. Her nipples ached, and she plucked them as Fitz unbuttoned his shirt. It still wasn’t easy for him, but he was learning how to manage.

His trousers and underwear were gone much quicker.

He stood close to the bed, his hand on his cock, stroking as he stared hungrily at her.

Jemma couldn’t catch her breath.

She wanted.

A flash of white-pink light filled the room.

She paused, as did Fitz, and simultaneously they both looked over towards the radio.

The stone was hovering a few inches above its case and glowing faintly.

“Uh,” Fitz said.

Jemma sat up and slid off the bed. “That’s unexpected.”

Slowly, the stone settled back into place.

“What do we do?” Fitz asked.

Jemma didn’t answer immediately. She knew what she should do. Declare an emergency. Have the stone put under protective custody. Not go near it when it wasn’t in a sealed enclosure.

She walked towards the object.

She didn’t want to do any of those things. The stone was calling to her. She could feel the light as it struck her skin. It was warm and welcome. She had a funny feeling that the stone liked her.

“Fitz, I think we should see what happens.”

“Are y-you sure?”

Jemma couldn’t explain it, but for once in her life, she was going to go with her gut. Or maybe heart. She looked over her shoulder at Fitz.

Okay, maybe twice in her life.

“I’m sure.”


	10. (Don't Fear) The Reaper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No S1 connotations implied with the chapter title. While I was writing this fic (Don't Fear) The Reaper followed me around. I'd start my car and it'd be on the radio. I'd take my kid to skating lessons and it'd be playing over the PA system. I'd shuffle my entire itunes (I'm old) playlist and it'd be the first song. I thought I had better just give in and use it in the fic ;-) (Heck, it even started following my beta around!) 
> 
> Thank you a million times over to everyone who's taken a risk on reading this fic! I appreciate you all more than you know! :-D :-D

Baby take my hand

               -Blue Öyster Cult, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

****

“The interrogation room, on the Bus,” Jemma said. “Just in case.”

Fitz was already doing his pants back up. They dressed, and he grabbed the case with the stone, hesitated, and then his radio. Which made her roll her eyes.

“Come on! Come on!” he yelled over his shoulder as he barreled out into the hallway. She had to sprint to catch up with him. The garage was thankfully empty, and nobody stuck their head out to ask what Fitz was doing as he charged up the ramp into the plane and clanged up the stairs. Inside the interrogation room, he did something to the door controls to lock it after setting the radio and box on a chair.

Door secure, he pressed play on the iPod. The song that started was the most inappropriate ever—really? Blue Öyster Cult?—but she didn’t bother asking him to change it as he slowly opened the stone’s box. It was still glowing faintly.

“What do we do?” she asked, looking down at the object.

Fitz shrugged. “W-what we were?”

“It did seem like it was responding to sexual energy. So that does make sense.” She pulled her jumper off and dumped it on the floor, followed by her blouse and bra. She could feel the stone. Its presence in the room. It was an indescribable relief after so long of being unable to sense anything at all. She shucked the rest of her clothes quickly.

Straightening up, she frowned. Fitz was still fully clothed, a nervous look on his face.

“H-how safe?” he asked.

“I don’t think we can know whether or not it’s safe. Not completely.”

“Jemma…”

She understood. He was scared of losing her to something unknown. But she knew, she just knew, that everything was going to be okay. It frightened her a little because she had to go with how she felt, not on measurable quantities she could list in a table, but she was completely sure. The sky was blue, and the stone wouldn’t hurt her.

The object’s glow increased. It was a soft, rose-tinted light.

“I don’t think it’s going to harm us,” she said. “ It feels right. So right. Please, for me?”

He nodded and undid his shirt with shaking hands. Jemma stepped closer as he slid the shirt from his shoulders to land on the floor. He still looked nervous, though his gaze had dropped to her breasts, which she took to be a good sign. She leaned in, waiting for the faint tingle that would tell her to stop.

There wasn’t one.

She leaned closer. In the cool air of the room, she could…

“Fitz,” she whispered. “I can smell you.” It was achingly familiar. She knew his scent better than her own. It brought back so many memories. Of being in his dorm room, apartment, bunk. Walking up to him after a hard day of classes or work and finding comfort. It was home.

He raised his hands as she leaned forward, her nose close to his neck.

“I f-feel…your breath…” In the next instant, his hands were around her upper arms, and his lips were on hers.

Warmth. Taste. Touch.

Him.

She cried out, and her hands skittered over his chest. Feeling him. The fingers of one hand went to his face as his mouth hungrily devoured hers. His tongue plunged between her lips, and she eagerly wrapped her own around it.

She was kissing Fitz.

It was good. Amazing. Better than she’d dreamed.

She didn’t care why or how, just that she was.

He pushed her back until they bumped into the table. His hands went to her ass, where they stalled for a moment, his palms achingly hot as he grabbed her. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest, needing the friction against her nipples, which were begging for attention.

Fitz’s hands slid to her hips and helped her hop up onto the table. His mouth left hers to kiss along her jaw and neck. It all felt like a dream.

One she’d had many times but had never believed would come true.

When he started to straighten up, she pressed on his shoulders, “Breasts!”

He didn’t hesitate and ducked his head to suck on one nipple while his hand kneaded the other side. Her head dropped back, and she moaned.

There were a million things Jemma knew she should be worried about, from why she was suddenly solid to what the stone was up to, since those were probably not mutually exclusive, but all she could do was feel.

Fitz’s lips returned to hers, and her hands grasped at his back.

She wanted.

He broke the kiss, and she whimpered.

“S-sc-sc…” His palms smacked the table on either side of her hips with obvious frustration as words failed him, but she knew what he meant.

Jemma scooted back until his hands caught her knees. His palms caressed her inner thighs before spreading her legs wide. Fitz leaned over and pressed his face against her pussy, making a noise of such absolute bliss she felt herself get choked up. He was keeping his word, that as soon as he got a chance, he was going to…

His tongue lapped tentatively at her, and she nearly levitated off the table.

“Fitz,” she moaned, and the hesitant strokes of his tongue became bolder. He didn’t seem quite to know what to do—Jemma honestly had no idea if he’d ever gone down on a girl before— but being him, he experimented and quickly found just the right way to swirl his tongue around her clit coupled with sucking kisses to make her writhe and mewl. Her hands gripped the edges of the table as pressure built low in her belly.

****

Mack was only half listening to Coulson as he sat in the director’s office. It was something about reports detailing maintenance needed after vehicles had been in the field. Coulson was going over them and wondering if there was a way to prevent some of the effects of wear and tear so there’d be less downtime on the SUVs after a mission.

Mack mostly wanted to tell him they needed to stop wrecking them on such a regular basis.

As Coulson rambled on, Mack watched security camera feeds flick by in rapid succession on a screen behind the director’s head.

It was all boring, except for one of May handing Skye her rear in a training session.

Then boring again until…was that what he thought it was?

“Hey,” Mack said. “Is that the interview room on the plane?”

Coulson spun and frowned, but the image was replaced, and he had to scramble for the keyboard to bring it back up.

They both stared, dumbfounded.

“Is that…” Mack cleared his throat. “I mean good on him, getting busy, but is that Fitz with some girl on the Bus?”

“Not some girl.” Coulson sounded awed. “That’s Simmons.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how he did it, but he’s made her corporeal.” Coulson winced as there was a flash of light and the girl’s—Simmon’s—hands reached out and grasped the side of the table. “There’s something to the side.” He moved the camera to focus on an open box with an object pulsing brightly in it. As they watched, the thing started to hover and spin. Coulson cut the feed. “We need to get in there. Whatever that is, it didn’t look like something humans should be in the same room with it.”

“Yeah,” Mack said, too stunned to move until Coulson grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the office.

On the plane, the door wouldn’t open.

Mack, thankful for the room’s soundproofing, had to chuckle at Coulson’s huffing. “I don’t think they want to be disturbed.”

Coulson shook his head. “Get Skye up here and see if she can bypass whatever Fitz has done to the door.”

“Maybe if we give them another twenty minutes they’ll come out on their own?”

Coulson crossed his arms. “This isn’t funny, get Skye here. That box…Fitz took something from the warehouse that had the 084. If it can bring the dead back to life—”

Mack sobered up. That didn’t sound like something anyone should be messing around with, but he knew how desperate Fitz was.

He ran for the nearest comms panel.

****

Fitz was breathing hard, Jemma’s scent washing over him with each inhalation. She was sweet and tart. He was sure he could stay between her legs for hours. Except for the part where his cock was urgently pushing against the fabric of his jeans, and there was getting to be an uncomfortable wet spot.

Jemma was making the most amazing sounds, ones that were going to be etched in his memory forever.

Please don’t let this be the only time he could ever touch her.

Please.

Her legs quivered, her hips jerked and—

She was coming.

His name fell from her lips as her body undulated.

Fitz looked up at her face just in time to see the stone from the box fly through the air and slam into Jemma’s chest. He yelled, scrambling onto the table, but she was only staring down at her unmarred breasts.

“It didn’t hurt,” she said.

There was a faint, white-pink pulse from under her skin. Fitz touched the spot, but it didn’t feel any different from normal.

“Maybe…I’m permanent now?” Her voice was soft.

She had to be. He couldn’t stand it if she faded to a ghost again. “Yes,” he said, needing to believe it.

“Good.” Jemma laid back and hooked a leg over his hip. “Make love to me, Fitz.”

“Yes,” he said again. A million times yes. He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply. He wished their first time wasn’t going to be on a metal table, or that the few fumbling times he’d gotten it on in the past had in any way prepared him for this moment.

“Stop thinking,” she said as her hands undid his belt and lowered his zip. God, he was already close to coming.

“Wh-wh-what if I…”

“I told you to stop thinking. It’s you. That’s all I want.”

She stroked his cock, and he groaned. Her hand was warm, and she was gloriously alive. His jeans were rough as Jemma used her feet to push them down legs before guiding the head of his cock to her opening.

He pushed himself up to watch her face as he slowly thrust into her. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she made a contented noise when he was completely sheathed.

Fitz found he couldn’t move. It was overwhelming, being intimately connected to the one girl that his whole life had centered around since he’d been a teenager. He was trembling.

Jemma’s voice was soft in his ear as her hands ran up and down his back. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay Fitz. I love you.”

“L-love you too.” It’d been hard for him to control his emotions lately as it was, and now he had no hope of doing it. Love for the woman under him, the woman he was inside of, filled him from head to toe. “Love you,” he said again.

She kissed him softly but ended with a nip to his bottom lip at the same time she reached down and squeezed his ass. Abruptly, he was fighting the instinct to pound into her as hard as he could. Fitz jerkily thrust a few times before finding a steady rhythm that had Jemma rolling her hips and making delighted noises.

She wormed a hand between their bodies and rubbed her clit. Her slick inner walls clamped down around his prick, and her thighs quivered around his hips.

Jemma came, raggedly moaning his name and Fitz lost all semblance of control. He braced his hands on either side of her body and pistoned his hips frantically. Jemma was writhing under him, her nails digging into his back.

With a last grunt and plunge, he came, bliss sweeping out from his groin to encompass his entire body.

He finally managed to pry his eyes open and look down at Jemma. Her pussy was still pulsing around his cock, and he belatedly realized she must have come again. She looked dazed.

One of her hands finally moved from his shoulder to the back of his head and pulled him down into a gentle kiss.

Oh, fuck…thye’d…they’d actually…

He sagged against her, utterly spent.

She hugged him close.

The door to the room slid open.

“Got it!” Skye said. Fitz’s mouth dropped open as she stepped into the room. She looked up, and yelped.

He wasn’t sure if he should apologize for being mostly naked and still inside his girlfriend when he was the one who’d locked the door. He went for option two and didn’t move a muscle.

Jemma craned her head back.  “Hi, Skye!”

“Er, hi.” Skye spun on her heel to face Coulson. “You told me Fitz was in trouble. He looks fine to me.” She crossed her arms and stalked off.

Jemma raised a hand and waved at Mack and Coulson. “Can you close the door and give us two minutes to get dressed, please?”

Mack gave a flustered nod, and the door glided shut. Shakily, Fitz scrambled off the table and helped Jemma to stand as well. Her knees didn’t seem to want to work either as she pulled her clothes back on. It was a shame to see her covered.

Fitz hitched his trousers up and got his shirt on, though doing it up was another matter. Jemma caught his hands in hers.

“Let me.”

She did the buttons up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. He’d let her dress or undress him anytime she wanted.

The door opened again, and Coulson marched in. He wasn’t smiling.

“Care to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“Jemma’s b-back,” Fitz said.

“So I see, but since she’s dead, I’d appreciate knowing how.”

“I was a ghost—” Jemma started.

“That was a real thing?” Mack said. “I thought Turbo here was just…”

Fitz pinched the bridge of his nose. “N-nuts?”

Coulson waved a hand. “Not important. How?”

“See,” Jemma said. “There was this box, from the warehouse the 084 was in?”

Coulson and Mack nodded.

She stepped closer to Fitz, and he put an arm around her waist. “I could feel it,” she said. “When we were at the warehouse, so I asked Fitz to bring it back. It was mostly SiO2—Quartz—but not quite. There was something else in the crystal matrix.”

“Code,” Fitz said.

“Yes, Fitz thinks it isn’t random, that it’s like a computer program. He was probably right. We accidently figured out it was activated by…er…sexual activity. To be safe, we brought it here.”

Coulson blinked. “And where is to now?”

Fitz tightened his arm around Jemma, afraid they’d try to take her from him.

“It’s here.” She touched her chest. “I don’t think it has bad intentions. I realize that sounds odd, but it was like it was, well, I don’t even know. Like it was happy.”

“Happy?” Coulson said and sighed. “We should quarantine and test you—”

Quarantine?

“No!” Fitz barked, his other arm coming around Jemma and pulling her against him.

She looked up at him. “They might be right. We don’t know what the stone was.”

“No,” he said again. “Not…away.” He looked up at Coulson. “Not away!”

Mack held up a hand. “Relax, Fitz. Quarantine seems like a moot point. If it’s contagious, it’s already all over the base since Skye was in here and went charging off.”

Coulson dragged a hand down his face. “Okay, no quarantine, but blood work along with a full physical.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Jemma said.

Fitz huffed. “Fine.” As long as she was where he could get to her, could touch her, it’d be okay.

Coulson herded all of them down to the lab, where the technicians stared at Jemma like she was…a ghost. Which she had been. Her picture was on the wall, and everyone had been calling him “poor Fitz” behind his back because no one had believed him. Well, he’d showed them.

Jemma hopped up on one of the stools, and an awed looking woman began taking a series of vital signs.

Fitz leaned on another workbench, his gaze never leaving Jemma.

Mack came and stood next to him. “I think I owe you an apology.”

Fitz grunted.

“No man, I really am sorry. I should have…hell, if I know. I shouldn’t have just written you off.”

“Thanks.”

Mack put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t know you before. About the only things I know about you now is that you got hurt, nearly killed and that you love a girl.” Mack squeezed and let go. “Completely love a girl…and that you’re a pretty smart guy.”

“Yeah.” Fitz drummed his fingers on the table. He just wanted this to be over. 

“Learned something else today.”

“W-what’s that?” Fitz wasn’t entirely sure he cared.

“That a girl loves you too. She can’t keep her eyes off you.”

A smile spread over Fitz’s face. “She’s amazing.”

“Got that.”

****

The tests went on and on. Part of Jemma was very interested in the results, and part of her was just hungry and tired.

She almost asked Fitz to go get her a salad from the mess, but he would have to leave to do that, and she wasn’t ready for him to be out of sight. Currently, he was fussing with something on a tablet, his attention fixated on whatever problem he was trying to work out.

Coulson came in and out the lab several times, worry lines etched on his face.

Finally, he brought a tablet with him, making a face at whatever was on it. He glanced over at Fitz, who appeared to be absorbed in whatever he was reading.

“Is something wrong?” Jemma asked Coulson in a low voice.

“Maybe not wrong, but definitely weird.” He came to stand beside her. “We’ve had your body in storage, and I’ve been telling your parents you’re working undercover. I was waiting for Fitz to be up to speaking at a memorial for you, but he’s …he wasn’t getting to the point I thought he’d be able to.”

“For good reason,” she said, frowning.

Coulson briefly closed his eyes. “I know, I know. But with you being here, I sent Trip down to the morgue’s freezer.”

She made a face, thankful neither Fitz nor she had known about her body being so close. She would have wanted to see it, which meant Fitz would have seen her lying there cold and dead…Jemma peeked at him. He was frowning at his tablet, and she relaxed a fraction.

“What did Trip find?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“No body.” Coulson held up his tablet and pressed play on a queued up video. It showed Trip opening the freezer door and unzipping a flat body bag. Jemma’s stomach went queasy when she realized her remains had been in there. There was a hospital gown, which would have been used to cover her post autopsy—her stomach turned again—and not much else. Trip reached into the bag and held up a toe tag, the ends in a neat bow, printed with her identifying information. Coulson stopped the playback.

“Oh,” Jemma said weakly.

“I suppose it’s good to know that your body didn’t simply form out of thin air.”

“Quite.” She swallowed thickly and reached for the tablet, using it to pull up test results. “My lungs seem to be functioning optimally, which is good, I suppose, after drowning.” Coulson looked pained. She brought up the series of full body x-rays that’d been done. “And look, my IUD is still in place, which is excellent as neither of us were concerned with contraception earlier.” Coulson made a strangled sound.

“That’s, er, excellent.” He took the tablet back. “Actually, all your tests are coming back completely normal. For now, you’re free to go, though for the next several weeks I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go far, at least not until we know more about what happened to you.”

Jemma nodded. “The caution is appropriate; however, I believe that this might not be something that can be solved by science. Or at least not science as we know it now.”

“Are you saying I’m going to have to take your return on faith?”

“Maybe. As much as I hate to admit it, there are a few things in the world, like falling in love—” she looked towards Fitz again, who was frowning at what he was reading”—that simply defy explanation.”

Coulson smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome back, Simmons.”

“It’s good to be back.”

Coulson helped her down from the stool she’d been perched on, said good night, and left. She walked over to where Fitz was leaning against a lab bench.

He dumped the tablet he’d been fussing with on the counter as she held a hand out to him. That he dropped what he’d been absorbed in so readily told her more about how he felt about her than almost anything else ever would.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Kind of, mostly I’m tired, but I should eat.”

He threaded their fingers together and walked hand and hand down the hallway. Jemma absolutely refused to get out of anyone’s way, letting people walk around her for once.

It felt good.

She opted for yogurt and an orange, while Fitz grabbed a sandwich and crisps. They ate quickly, though it was the best cup of fat-free, no-name, blueberry yogurt she’d ever had. It was tempting to eat everything she could get her hands on after not having tasted much for so long, but she didn’t want to risk upsetting her digestive system with too much too soon.

Back in their room, Fitz pulled out several boxes of her clothes, and she was incredibly grateful to change into a new pair of knickers and an oversized sleep-shirt.

Fitz laid on his side of the bed, and she laid beside him, just like they had been for months.

Only now everything was perfect. Jemma slid her elbow out to bump his arm.

“It’s pretty exciting to have an actual blanket over me and a pillow under my head,” she said, patting the pillow. “I sort of missed being alive.” She grimaced. “I guess I’ll have to call my parents tomorrow. They’ll be worried after not hearing from me for so long.”

Fitz was studying her face. “I’m s-sorry I-I-“ He broke off and sighed. “Th-th-that I’m not like I was.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?” She reached out and put a hand on his cheek. “I’ve been with you every step of the way. I’m no different than this morning. Maybe slightly more tactile now. And you’re still my Fitz.”

“I w-wish I was…more…more…” He broke off with a frustrated snort.

“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and with exactly who I’m supposed to be with,” she said. “And he’s all I wish for.”

“I’m—”

“Perfect. And you should have seen yourself at the warehouse. That was seriously hot. Not to mention earlier when you knocked my bloody socks off.”

“Jemma,” he whispered, a grin on his face as his arms went around her and hauled her until she was lying on top of him. She put her head on his shoulder as he hugged her close.

She fell asleep listening to the beat of his heart.


	11. Don't Look Back

Banner by ughfitz! Thank you!

A new day is breakin'

               -Boston, “Don’t Look Back”

****

Being dead was apparently a terrible way to work out your issues.

Jemma knew she was dreaming. At least she thought she was.

The ocean was an endless swirl around her, waves as far as she could see. She was so tired. And she was alone.

Panic set in. She’d lost him. He’d been right there. What had happened? She frantically twisted her head left and right, but she saw nothing.

“Fitz!” she screamed, seawater washing into her mouth, making her cough. “Fitz!”

She had to find him, but it was so hard to move. The water was dragging her under—

“Jemma!”

Her eyes popped opened. There was ceiling, not grey sky, above her.

And she wasn’t alone.

Jemma turned her head, and Fitz’s concerned face came into view. His warm hand was on her shoulder.

“Nightmare,” she gasped, not wanting to go into details.

He struggled to say something, gave up, but instead of becoming angry like he usually did when he couldn’t communicate, he sat up and helped her to do the same.

She fought to catch her breath.

Fitz’s hands covered hers, and he directed them down in front of her so her palms were flat on the bed. He pressed slightly on the back of her hands and then guided them to slide over the sheet so she was feeling the material with her fingers.

He was grounding her. Reminding her of where she was. After a few passes over the mattress, he gently picked up her hands and pressed them against his knees, then slowly slid her palm up his legs and onto his stomach, chest, neck, and finally face.

Jemma got the message. He was there with her. She wasn’t alone. Shaking, she launched herself into his lap, and he hugged her tight as she pressed her face against his neck and sobbed.

She wasn’t alone.

****

She must have cried herself back to sleep because when Jemma next awoke, she was on her side with Fitz spooned around her back.

Her mind felt a lot clearer, and her body was convinced it was fine right where it was and should never move. Most of her body, anyway, her bladder had other ideas.

Jemma ignored it as she started running through a list of much more interesting ideas. She wanted very badly to be back in the lab. To have a project. To be doing something. To be useful.

There was also a lot of time to make up for with the deliciously warm man she was cuddled against.

When it became imperative she use the restroom, she wiggled out of the arm holding her and sat on the edge of the bed to stretch.

“You okay?” Fitz’s sleep-hoarse voice asked. It was nearly enough to make her want to crawl back under the blankets and snuggle more, except she really couldn’t wait on the toilet.

“I’m good. I’m just going to pee and take a shower.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face into his pillow. Jemma ruffled his hair, mostly because she could, before standing and padding into the small bathroom. Relieving herself wasn’t a problem, but when she turned on the shower, she found herself unable to move. The bathroom was both too big and too small and—

She opened the door and stumbled back out.

Startled, Fitz pushed himself up on the bed and rubbed at his eyes.

“I can’t,” she blurted.

“Can’t…w-what?”

She twisted her hands together. “My biological processes are all working fine, but I’m unable to…alone…”

Fitz looked slightly lost.

“I don’t think I can shower alone. I don’t think I’ve adequately dealt with the trauma I went through, and I panicked just now. But I do still need to keep standards of personal hygiene…and…I think I’m asking if you’ll shower with me? In a non-sexual way, for right now.”

“Of course.”

He stood up and took her hand to lead her back into the bathroom. He stripped his boxers and t-shirt off while she shakily took off her nightgown and knickers. Getting in first, he took her arm as she squished with him into the shower stall.

It wasn’t really big enough for two people, but she didn’t care. It just mattered that she felt safe.

Fitz grabbed a bottle of body wash, and she realized it was hers. He must have put it in here for her last night. She couldn’t believe he’d saved it for her. Fitz really had never given up hope. You didn’t keep body wash for someone if you didn’t think they were going to have a body to use it on.

She slowly relaxed as he rubbed her back and the warm water started to feel good instead of like it was going to sweep her away. He calmly shampooed his hair as well as hers, and when they were both clean, he simply held her, her back to his front, the water hitting the nape of his neck but cascading over both of them.

One of his hands drifted lower, and heat blossomed between her hip bones.

“C-can I?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck.

“Yes.”

His fingers threaded through her pubic hair before finding their way to her clit, where the tip of one began to make little circles.

Someone had been paying attention when he’d watched her masturbate.

Though that shouldn’t be a surprise to her. It was Fitz. He probably had a diagram in a notebook somewhere showing force vectors and—

Oh.

That felt good.

She clutched at his forearm and moaned. The hard line of his very erect cock was pressed against her ass, making her toes curl.

Her hips rolled, and his fingers rubbed a bit harder and a bit faster. Her orgasm crashed into her suddenly, leaving her gasping and shaking, limply hanging in Fitz’s arms.

Okay, every morning could start like this. That’d be just fine.

Once she could stand on her own, he shut the water off and put a hand on her back to guide her out of the shower to stand dripping on the mat. He turned to grab a towel and Jemma frowned. He was obviously still aroused, his erection jutting out from his groin, but it was like he didn’t plan to do anything about it.

Oh, she’d been the one to say no shower sex.

Like that mattered now and why did he feel the need to play the gentleman at this moment?

Fitz was facing her with a towel in his hands. With a soft growl, she tore it from his fingers and let it fall to the floor before pushing him against the wall.

“Jemma?”

She ignored him and dropped to her knees, fisting his cock and wrapping her mouth around the head.

“Oh.” His hands sank into her damp hair, but he didn’t pull, just left them resting on her head as she sucked more of his prick into her mouth and bobbed her head. He moaned, loudly, and she felt rather proud of herself.

It wasn’t long before he was trying to push her away.

“Going to…going to…” he panted.

She pulled her mouth off his cock. “Leopold Fitz! That’s the entire point of what I’m doing here. Now be quiet and let me swallow like I told you I would.”

That shut him up.

She licked up the length of his shaft and sucked him in as deep as she could. It only took seconds before his cock bucked in her mouth and he groaned harshly. She had to swallow fast to keep up with his release.

When he let go of her, she pressed a few kisses to his belly before standing. Fitz cupped her face in his hands. His eyes were heavy-lidded.

“Good morning,” he said.

She smiled. “It is.” One of his hands dropped to the middle of her chest and under his fingers the stone pulsed slightly, the light visible beneath her skin. As much as it didn’t make sense, she thought the artifact liked Fitz.

His hand fell away as his stomach rumbled, and he looked down like it’d betrayed him, but Jemma only laughed. “Get dressed,” she said. “I think it’s breakfast time.”

In the mess, she picked out porridge with strawberries and bananas, while Fitz, like usual, grabbed nearly everything but the kitchen sink. It was nice to feel so normal. Except for the weight of all the stares that were aimed at her.

“It’s like I came back from the dead or something,” Jemma joked, even as she squirmed. Being the center of attention had never quite been her thing. Even presenting a paper at a conference, the work would be center stage, not her.

Fitz looked around, sighed, and stood up. He took a deep breath. “Jemma’s okay,” he said loudly. The other agents suddenly all got very busy with their food. With a huff, he sat back down. “There. They can mind their own...b-b…”

“Business. And yes, they most certainly can.”

Jemma smiled at him, and he returned it shyly. In anything, big or small, he would always be her hero.

****

Fitz was starving.

With Jemma eating, now that the general rudeness level in the room had been lowered, he tucked in.

Having the best morning of one’s life was a good way to work up an appetite. Jemma had been unbelievable. He wouldn’t trade being friends with her for anything, but he wouldn’t have minded doing stuff like that with her ages ago. That thought led him to think about the few boyfriends she’d had over the years, and Fitz struggled to shove down the unwanted jealousy that erupted.

“You got gloomy all of a sudden,” Jemma said, taking a bite of porridge.

He shook his head.

“Nice try.”

Damn.

“L-long t-t-t…” Oh, brilliant timing on pulling a blank.

Jemma set down her spoon and put her hand over his on the table.

“Yeah, it took us a long time to get here, and no time at all. I was scared to lose my best friend,” she said, pausing and briefly closing her eyes. “And then I nearly did. Almost in the same heartbeat that he told me I was more than a friend. It was terrifying, Fitz.”

“I’m sorry.”

She pushed her tray aside and took his hand in both of hers. “No. Well, yes, it was a lot all at once. And you were unconscious when I poured my heart out to you, among all that endless water. I thought I might not get a chance to tell you how you’ve been my…my everything. I’d fallen for you a long time ago, and you had no idea.”

“None.”

“I hated every girlfriend you had, the same way you couldn’t do anything but tell me how terrible my boyfriends were and dry my tears when they left. We’d already switched hearts at some point when we weren’t looking.”

“Never g-go away, again.”

She let out a small breath. “I can’t promise that, Fitz. I don’t want to. I never want to be further away from you than arm’s length if I can help it, but, life can be so unpredictable. So many unknown variables.”

He let go of her hand and stood, walking around to the other side of the table to sit beside her. He put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder.

“No…m-matter where you go. I..I..I will always find you.”

“Oh, Fitz.” Jemma tucked herself against him as he stroked her back.

They stayed that way for long moments before there was a clamor at the door to the mess.

Coulson walked in with May close behind him. That spelled trouble. He strode to where Fitz and Jemma were sitting. “I hope you’re done eating,” Coulson said. “Because this Creel thing isn’t going away and I need Fitz-Simmons in the lab, now.”

****

Mack stood outside the glass wall of the lab, though the door was open and the voices of Fitz and Simmons were carrying out of it.

They were bent over a tablet lying on a lab table, looking at schematics for the weapon that could stop Creel. There was a mockup to one side, but now the pair was working on the actual device.

Coulson, May, Skye, and Hunter were standing with Mack. If the two scientists knew they had an audience, they weren’t showing it.

“It’s good to see them together,” Coulson said. “It’s like the universe has been put back in its proper order.”

May crossed her arms. “I have to agree. It was like watching a car try to drive on two wheels.”

“One with two ghost wheels,” Skye said, frowning when everyone stared at her.

“Hey, director,” Mack said. “You didn’t seem too surprised when Simmons turned out to not have been a hallucination.”

May fixed Coulson with a speculative gaze.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t. I’ve learned to trust the kid…and I was walking by when Fitz was analyzing the sample from Creel. He adjusted the microscope, changed out the sample under the lenses, and took notes while never once looking through the eyepiece.”

“He put Simmons name first on the report as well,” May said.

Coulson nodded. “And at the warehouse, it was like someone was feeding him tactical information. There just hadn’t been time to deal with it yet. I’m not that shocked they managed to work it out on their own.”

Mack wasn’t either. Though he was slightly uncomfortable with the working theory that the alien virus Jemma had been exposed to had somehow linked her to another alien artifact. Jemma had been cheerful about it, however, and had pointed out that for once it was nice that something alien had turned out to be helpful. Not everything that was unknown had to be terrible.

Skye smiled. “I shouldn’t have doubted him. But what’s with all the seventies music?”

“It was playing in the hospital,” Mack said. “And I guess they got used to it.”

“Ah, that’s why we’re being serenaded by Boston?” Hunter made a face.

Mack snorted. “ _Don’t Look Back_ isn’t bad advice.”

“Y’know,” Skye said. “Fitz-Simmons might be the ones playing the music, Mack, but I swear you know every single song.”

He held up his hands. “I plead the fifth.” They so weren’t getting that story.

“I can’t get over that Fitz fucked his girlfriend back to life,” Hunter said. Mack sighed. He’d told the guy that’s not what had happened but obviously hadn’t gotten through to Lance. And maybe it was a little bit true. Mack would be thrilled if he never had to deal with another alien artifact ever again.

The voices from in the lab were rising in volume.  

“Fitz,” Jemma said. “You know I love you.”

“I-I love you too.” Fitz’s eyes narrowed.

Jemma pecked his lips. “But I’m going to have to completely disagree here—”

“—the material—”

“—cellular structure—”

“—a-a-att—”

“—attenuation isn’t going to matter as much as you think—”

Coulson turned away from the lab. “I think we all should leave them to it.”

“True love,” Skye said, looking dreamy.

“Not just true.” Mack grinned as Fitz and Simmons glared at each other. “Their love is more than the kind you find at the end of a fairytale. It’s real.”

 

** Epilogue **

_Puerto Rico_

_****_

Fitz woke to the feeling of soft lips on his.

Jemma was kissing him awake, as she did nearly every morning. He raised a hand to cup the back of her head. Every single time she looked so happy when his eyes opened that it made his heart take flight. She insisted that her only fears were either not being able to find him or not being able to wake him up. So every morning she indulged herself and acted as his alarm clock.

They were lying together in a narrow bed in a cheap hotel in Puerto Rico. The day was going to be busy, what with the whole underground alien city thing, but the sun was barely peeking over the horizon, and they still had a few minutes to themselves.

The radio neither of them was willing to part with was playing Cheryl Lynn. Their friends were all very familiar with Fitz-Simmons’ endless ‘70s playlist at this point. He no longer wondered where the radio had come from in the first place. The answer was probably something he didn’t want to know.

It amused both Fitz and Jemma to no end that no one said anything about them staying together. Coulson hadn’t even bothered asking if they wanted separate rooms at the hotel and only booked them one. It saved money, he said.

Their friends and colleagues had mostly gotten over Jemma having been a ghost. There’d been a ‘Welcome Back’ party at which Hunter had taken a lot of convincing to believe that she had not, in fact, been wandering around and looking at everyone in their underwear.

“Just Fitz,” Skye had said.

Jemma had snorted. “He was naked.” Everyone had turned to look at him, and he’d felt his cheeks burn as he’d chugged his beer and attempted to disappear into the wall.

There’d been exactly one attempt by Coulson to split them up on a mission. Fitz had stood up and started to walk out. Jemma had caught up and put her hand in his.

Maybe someday they’d be comfortable with it, but right now it was both of them together or not at all.

And single beds in ancient hotel rooms.

“Good morning,” Jemma whispered.

“Mmmm,” he hummed. “Not yet.”

She was still naked from the night before, and it didn’t take him long to pet her into full, panting arousal. He rolled her onto her stomach and slid into her from behind.

“Now it’s a good morning,” he said as he thrust slowly. Every morning with Jemma was the best one of his life.

She moaned in response. One of her hands disappeared as she worked it under herself to stroke her clit.

Outside their window, tropical birds were calling, and the ocean’s waves were rolling onto the shore.

He couldn’t have cared less, all of paradise meant less than the woman in his arms.

The ocean was nothing but background noise, and the only salt that mattered was the salt he kissed from her skin.

And maybe Rubidium Fluoride.

_~FIN~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I somehow can't quite believe this is all posted! Thank you to Gort for being an amazing beta! And a giant thank you to everyone who has commented along the way. It's been crazy posting in a new fandom to say I've been a nervous nelly would be the understatement of the year, so all the cheerleading has meant a lot!! And I always love to hear what readers think, whether you're reading this ten seconds, ten months, or ten years after it's first posted!! <3 (Kudos are also greatly appreciated!! I completely understand that not everyone is comfortable commenting. You can also hit me up on tumblr (@sunalsolove) and drop me a line there!) I promise the next fic won't need any archive warnings :-D
> 
> -sunAlso 3/30/2018 1555, at my kitchen table

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